The Death of Science

The inimitable Fran Porretto once again says exactly what I would like to, but in a much more elegant and erudite manner than my poor talents allow:

Science is dead.

Yes, your Curmudgeon is serious. It was an assisted suicide; the attending physicians were the national governments of the world, including the federal government of these United States. The euthanizing drug was money from the public till.

(Yes, this is about Climaquiddick, though not exclusively.)

The funding of "serious" scientific research, regardless of which of the sciences we address, is now dominated by governments. The percentages are difficult to obtain, but it seems certain that the greater number of dollars spent on scientific research in America today come from federally controlled sources such as the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health. In keeping with the old maxim that "he who pays the fiddler calls the tune," Washington has largely taken control of scientific research. Chief investigators spend a huge fraction of their energies on locating topics of interest to grant-making bureaucracies. Washington uses the money lure to channel investigators into its preferred areas...and away from those it would rather not see explored.

The State will always prefer scientific "findings" that provide a justification for increasing its power. Inversely, it will frown on discoveries that undercut its rationales for power. As the bureaucrats who control, de facto, the flow of federal research funds are vividly aware of the relationship between the size of the State and their occupational prospects, it would be unreasonable to expect them to resist this compelling dynamic.

Many good and decent people are unwilling to accept this conclusion. The "man of science," the Man In A Lab Coat, is almost as highly revered in America as the iconic Soldier. He's assumed to be so dedicated to the pursuit of Truth that filthy lucre could never deflect him. This, to be gentle about it, is not the case. Besides, we have recently seen the Obama Administration use the National Endowment for the Arts to marshal propaganda for its purposes. In that light, how could anyone dismiss the use of research grants in the same fashion as unthinkable?

When government began to fund scientific research in nominally private institutions, it changed the dynamic that directs researchers into particular channels. Worse, it changed the dynamic that determines success in the sciences, and what sort of person will pursue a career in them. Today's typical chief investigator is a master of grantsmanship: the fine art of:

• Writing a grant proposal that will catch the eye of a bureaucrat with funds to disburse;
• Maximizing the flow of funds made available through that grant;
• Keeping the grant alive, and the funds flowing, by never, ever conceding that his research has reached a definite conclusion.

Such a chief investigator may be highly intelligent. He may be acutely perceptive of Nature's patterns and unexplored yet fruitful avenues of research. Neither of those qualities will be nearly as important to his ongoing success as his skill at grantsmanship. Maximizing the flow of funds into his laboratory will remain his prime consideration at all times. His ability to do so will enable him to displace less grantsmanly investigators, who will have a much harder time achieving publication, getting tenure, and attracting gifted sub-investigators.

A positive feedback loop connects advanced grantsmanship and frequency of publication. The ability to get funded correlates positively with the ability to get published in prestigious scientific periodicals, which in turn steers the attention and respect of grant-making bureaucracies to the more published investigators, and round and round it goes.

This wheel has been spinning for more than sixty years. It appears unbreakable by any means, short of ending government funding of research. Its principal consequence has been the detachment of nominally scientific institutions and recognized scientists from the pursuit of objectively verifiable knowledge about the natural world --- that is, from authentic science, science as most laymen understand it -- in preference for the favor of governments. The axe of government funding has severed science's heart from its head.

Nevertheless, science of the authentic sort can be revived. Government money and the prestige it can buy have induced a form of zombieism in scientists and their sheltering institutions. A continuing flow of funds is required to keep the victim docile. Therefore, the condition can be reversed...if the scientific community can be induced to endure a period of withdrawal.

Don't ask any current chief investigator to contemplate the notion. They're as firmly hooked on the State's money stream as any crackhead is on his drug of choice. Anyone who thinks it wise to get between an addict and his fix has never done it before, and is in for an unpleasant surprise. Which is more than half the reason your Curmudgeon fled screaming in terror from academia at the instant he'd squeezed all he could from it.