At 4:35 PM +0700 1/24/08, paola.dimaio@xxxxxxxxx wrote: (01)
>RANT/
>The important role of speculative enquiry is accepted to some extent,
>but a lot of effort imho is spent on research (done with public money)
>that is not useful (enough) nor applied , or only benefits the
>researchers and their private clients.
>Research funded with public money should benefit the public at large (02)
Bullshit. This is like the standard American right-wing fantasy that
the government is "spending our money". The purpose of research is to
investigate new areas of knowledge. The benefits, if any, to this
mythical entity called "the public at large" may or may not accrue
downstream, but to demand immediate 'relevance' (to what, exactly?)
is to cripple research. Experience suggests that it is worth
investing a substantial fraction of a group's or society's available
effort into pure research, undertaken for no other reason than to
find something out. For technology companies, the ideal fraction
seems to be about 20%, for example (Xerox, Google, HP); for a nation
Im not sure of the appropriate figure, but right now the USA is way
below par, and its economy is suffering in large part because of that. (03)
Pat (04)
>/RANT (05)
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