It's no secret that science is popular these days. I can't pick up a magazine or a newspaper without seeing an article dealing with science and how it impacts society. Global warming pieces are everywhere with scientists arguing about its causes or even if it exists. Some scientists argue about framing the debate for non-scientists while others think science is too important to be left up to people.
I read some politicians and they think they can fix every problem with regulation and laws. I read some scientists and they think they can fix every problem with funding.
This isn't a politics site so let's talk about this notion that throwing money at science invariably leads to results. Every time this argument comes up I get presented with the same example: President Kennedy's endorsement of putting a man on the moon. This and the Manhattan Project in World War II are the two obvious instances where the government, representing society, made a commitment and a timeframe and put up the money to make it happen. And they were both successful.
But does science really work that way? Can we have science on demand and just keeping adding people until we get the results we want? If so, let's cure that cancer stuff.
Too many scientists are playing the funding card as well. If we cost business trillions of dollars in punitive emissions caps and spend the same amount on grants and global warming doesn't get solved, scientists are going to take the blame.
The history of science is first and foremost about failure - not monumental, budget-shattering failures, but rather small failures that are reconfigured and test time and again.
Sometimes failures never become successes. Do kids earn about the Thor WS-117L rocket in school? Not in any history course I ever took. But Thor might easily have replaced the Atlas rocket in those early days of the space capsules so it was an important failure.
Coca-Cola, Penicillin, rubber - all failures and not a single one financed by government directive.
The frontiers of future technology are filled with failure, frustration and doubt. In many cases we don't even know today what we will need to research in the future. If political parties and changes in government dictate what we work on and how much gets spent, science becomes another arm of politics.
Making the government and its funding the responsible party for scientific achievement eliminates the many opportunities that small, poorly funded ventures can achieve dramatic things.
The next time you hear someone saying that science can cure it all if given enough funding, reach for their rose-colored glasses. The next time you hear a government say they can legislate scientific achievement, reach for your wallet.
