Ya, I can agree with that. It is my personal choice to pursue the path I am. However, the government just isn't funding theoretical research anymore (or at least its declining substantially). I fear that this will lead to people not being able to study nature just for the pure interest of doing so. There was a great TED talk I watched where a professor was interested in why a certain jellyfish adapted bioluminescence. As a result of her research she learned how bacterial quorum sensing worked and developed methods to better attack bacterial diseases in humans. She obviously hadn't planned on discovering this. And if the government had rejected her proposal to study jellyfish bioluminescence because "who cares about jellyfish bioluminescence" we never would have known.
Or the need for institutions other than government to fund research. I don't know how, though I'd be happy with having my dues to the AMS/SCIAM/ACM/IEEE/AAAI increase a lot if they used the extra money for grants.I fear that this will lead to people not being able to study nature just for the pure interest of doing so.
Those organizations and many others in biology and engineering are great, but they just can't throw around the kind of money the government can no matter how high dues go. For NIH, we're talking about $32 billion per year, or thereabouts. That's a crazy number that just can't be matched by anyone who can't print USD. The crazy thing is that the author of the piece suggests that the best course of action is that we start supporting candidates who promise to fund research. Sounds great until you realize that they don't exist. Pretty much ever. The only presidential candidate on the Dem side who mentioned it in 2008 was Clinton, and the only GOP member in the last couple election cycles was Gingrich. Everyone ridiculed him for his Moon base initiative, but at least it was something. Independent of party and other policy positions, I will support any candidate who throws their weight behind increased funding for NIH, NSF, et al.
No they can't, but then it's not at all certain that that kind of money is going to keep coming from the government either. Substantial and reliable government funding came because it was a military advantage, and is going away now that it isn't. If there isn't enough support to keep government funding anyway, then there needs to be some other way of supporting the work. Agreed, I just think it's a good time to consider what happens when those candidates continue not to appear.they just can't throw around the kind of money the government can no matter how high dues go.
Independent of party and other policy positions, I will support any candidate who throws their weight behind increased funding for NIH, NSF, et al.