The Case For Ending Government Funding of Science

Direct government funding of science has to end. Here is why, and what should replace it.

Some are making a big deal of a new paper in which “researchers found that between 1994-2023 not one of the 82 ‘climate science’ papers they identified had a financial or non-financial COI disclosure from at least one author.”

For the last decade, or more, I have been waving my arms around like a deranged monkey shouting that scientists, ante-Trump, did not view money from the government as tainted, biased, interested, dirty, suspicious or, especially, obliging. Instead, they thought of it as a natural and expected reward from the god Beneficence, i.e. Government, giving his people what they deserved, and they deserved because they were smart and spoke the right beliefs. They constantly told each other they were smart, anyway. And awarded credentials to each other to verify it.

Point is, when the moola was from Beneficence, scientists saw no conflict of interest. They could not conceive of it existing. They thought their payoff was natural. And that was just as true when the money came from Beneficence’s brother god NGO. From the same source quoted above: “The research also found that funding from NGOs was a significant predictor of studies reporting a positive association between climate change and hurricane behavior.”

No kidding.

How is it scientists claim purity, innocence, and disinterestedness when it is they themselves who hop on the Acela to DC and sit on the government committees that decide who gets the grant money from Beneficence? Of course the government has interest in the outcomes of research! How could they not? They asked for the research done specifically. They culled from consideration all proposals that were deemed hostile, inadequate, or politically incorrect. They, in cooperation with the gift getters, chose who lived and who died by the grant. Then Beneficence paid out! The government also asked for regular updates on the work which they asked and paid for.

I become exasperated every time I discuss this topic because I can’t see how this is not obvious. But it isn’t! We saw last week the (now) 3,400+ scientists who rage-signed a petition purportedly against Musk, but really to signal the scientists’ waning respect and fear over loss of all that free money they felt they so richly deserved.

Every source of money, save exceedingly rare completely anonymous no-known-source gifts, has an interest. When the sole source of funding, or near enough, is the government, the government thus has total interest and total control over the course of science. And those scientists who participate in the process, especially those who serve on grants committees, become part of the government, even though they hold no official position.

This system would be wonderful if the government was truly beneficent and wise. It is not. It is neither. I need only say to you DIE, “pregnant men”, “climate change”, “women in STEM”—and these are only a fraction of what has gone wrong—to prove that single-source behemoth control of science funding leads to absurdities.

And arrogance. Scientists in universities grew, as Eisenhower warned, too used to the largess, too hubristic over the “we pay; you do” system. That is not my phrase, but The Atlantic’s. They report on growing alarm over the new administration breathing Reality back into science (purging DIE), and from the loss of funds (like overhead). They say “The government has funded science and then largely left well enough alone.” This is as false as “pregnant men”. The government funded what it wanted! And it got what it wanted. They didn’t just leave pools of money from which scientists came and freely grazed. They controlled who got every cent.

Scientists are right to be frightened. The new small cuts should only be the start. The entire grants apparatus, except perhaps for rare special exceptions (which I am not here prepared to name), ought to be dismantled. There are too many scientists, fed by too much money, which leads to too much bad science, which drags the entire system down. I have written about this scores of times and won’t justify that opinion more here.

Notice I do not say “do not fund science”. I say the government grants system ought to be abolished. Here are some ideas what could replace it.

If every source of money is interested, then spread the interest around so it’s not concentrated to serve one cracked master. This reduces the chance science becomes degraded and cancerous and calcified as it now is.

I’ve already written a good deal of science can be shunted to private interests, who are free to pursue that which interests them. That is the most obvious route. Pharmaceuticals rely on this, and they ain’t hurtin’ (Trump will soon sign an executive order banning p-values). Stop counting on universities to churn ideas which private interests might use. Instead, do it yourself, homegrown. A larger spend up front, but an even larger return on investment at the end.

Patronage is a traditional route. The best off should indulge in noblesse oblige. Which, of course, many do. But they give the money to universities, which are corrupted to the bone, not least because of all the government money, but also because of misguided Equality (too many kids go to university), and managerialism (universities have more administrators than professors). If, and once, universities are restored to their former glory, the rich can return and have buildings named after them. For now, fund individual scientists, who can be anywhere and not just campus bound.

Or not just for now, but forever. This is the idea of Jacob Shell. He would give university scientists large salaries, and no grants. See if you’re not crying “Amen!” at the end of this:

Academic freedom of inquiry is the opposite of the grant system. The two cannot cohabitate the same cosmos. Because academic grants exist, nobody in the academy is really intellectually free. If academics were really intellectually free, then there could not be such a thing as an academic grant.

Scientists would use their own money, however obtained, to fund their own research. Which would be whatever they wanted it to be. Or not. Groups of scientists could form bands and pool their money to do more expensive research. If they wanted. Or not.

This brilliant idea results immediately in far fewer scientists, which brings freedom. It instantly reduces publish or perish, since scientists won’t have to grub for grants. The breathing room bought by this is wonderful to imagine. If this is done at universities, the extra money to pay scientists would have to come from firing administrators and asssistants to the asssistant Deans. A giddy thought.

It’s not that scientists won’t have to beg for money from someone. It’s that they will have to beg from someones. It spreads the interest around. The system becomes more adversarial and independent and thus creative. It would indeed result in a reduction of science. That is a blessing.

It forces the government, which would be out of the business of funding scientists, to find scientists which support whatever programs the government loves, and convince those who have money to fund these scientists. That requires real work, and will be forever a path to corruption. But a tangled one, which slows the rot. Now, government pays scientists directly to give them the support for The Science, so politicians and announce “Follow The Science!” and pretend there is no taint.

Science needs to feel the pain of hugeous cuts. Pain is necessary to grow. If anybody reading this has access to our new rulers, get them not just to cut overhead, but cut it all.

“C’mon, Briggs. We know you’re just saying this because no university will hire you. You just want money. You’d be on the take as much as anybody else.”

Certainly. Why do you think I run this page and beg for money at the bottom? I’m just as greedy as the next guy, and I spend it on what I want. You’re free to pay attention or ignore. I am thus, as the kids saying, leading by example. If I can do it, so can others.

Late addition: last night somebody tagged me on Sabine H's post on the same topic, and I'm happy to say I agree with her:

Are you really that blinded by your ideology that you can't see how ridiculously inefficient it is to finance research by "programs" and "initiatives"? Every time a government puts out one of those, suddenly everyone comes up with a research idea on that. Be that AI or quantum something or nanowhatever. You suddenly have too many people working on one thing and too few working on another. And yes, that's exactly the same problem the communists had with their planned economies.

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