abstract engineer blogspot

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Game Changing Ideas, and their Impossibility

Posted on 19:38 by hony
There are probably a dozen, maybe a hundred even, people on Earth who have an idea that could really change things for the better. An example would be Robert Bussard, who's Polywell fusion reactor could potentially provide clean, cheap, endless energy for humanity. Or it might not. In any case, they have basically no funding, so it doesn't really matter.
Federal research funding, it appears to me, is broken. In the first place, it is too broadly applied. While I am sure many important advancements in science have occurred in the last few decades, the fact is, it is extremely hard to get anything accomplished with 1 year and $50K. There are a zillion well-qualified researchers out there, who upon receiving Federal funding, immediately go about working on the next round of funding. This is a waste of their talent, constantly having to search for money to fund their research.
The second problem is that the Universities that host these researchers take an inordinate amount of their money. 35% or higher is actually pretty typical of the amount of skim the university immediately takes as soon as the researcher gets their check. Some schools take more than 50%.

Look, I could go all over this topic, and there are so many problems with The System now, which has basically become a means by which taxpayers augment the salaries of PhDs, but this has been covered,  and by better writers than I.

Instead I'd like to propose an impossible, practical solution: massive funding for few people. Let us pretend, for a moment, that the NIH had 3.5 billion dollars in money to dole out to quality research each year. Spread in $100k allotments, that figures to basically 35,000 researchers, nationwide, per year. How bout instead we give 350 researchers a year a grant worth ten million a piece. Those researchers would then be ineligible for other grant funding for 20 years. Certainly, the shakedown would be immense. First, only one in a hundred researchers would have funding that are currently being funded, so there'd be incredible competition. Second, all the researchers who didn't win would be forced to...I dunno...work for the winners? The schools could still skim their cream, the PhDs would still get paid...
But there would be this intense condensation of plausible ideas into funded ideas. Suddenly a researchers idea to tweak a tiny mouse protein and "see what happens" would get flagged as too inconsequential; the bold researcher who plans to genetically engineer mice capable of carrying human host organs gets funded, the protein tweaker goes and works for him/her.
The way I see it, instead of a zillion researchers on their little, poorly funded islands, each harboring a pet project or idea, you'd instead conglomerate the system, and by funding genuinely promising, game-changing ideas you'd end up with not only less bad ideas funded...but more researchers working on the good ideas.
Make sense?

Proceed to poke holes.


_
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook
Posted in | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • In which I criticize the antiquated feelings of Ye Olde Mechanikal Engineer
    In a Lawrence Journal World blog, Dave Klamet writes about changing trends in education, especially the increasing competitiveness of non-A...
  • The End of an Era
    Last night, the beginning of the end of the laptop officially began . Sure the iPad has been around...but with nearly 30 tablets debuting at...
  • Inadvertant Great Idea
    The "@" symbol was included on the typewriter in 1885, and remained the least used key on the board until 1971, when Ray Tomlinson...
  • I promise to stop writing about STEM soon. Just not yet.
    Imagine you are a tech company that makes widgets. You've gotten a factory in China to make the parts for the widgets for a tiny amount....
  • Schadenfreude
    Ran into a kid that bullied me from elementary school all the way up through my junior year of high school. He's really fat now, and dri...
  • The Worst Science Idea of 2010 - Genspace Now Open For Disaster
    Here's the idea : Let's build a lab where anyone, literally anyone, can come and tinker with microorganisms. Better yet, let's m...
  • Ross Vs. Gay Marriage
    Listening to Ross Douthat (a Catholic) try to explain that the institution of marriage will be damaged by allowing gays to marry just seems...
  • If A, Then B
    WSJ Headline 1: Math, Science Popular Until Students Realize They’re Hard  WSJ Headline 2: To Follow the Money, Study Engineering  The concl...
  • Evolutionary Politics
    If President Obama is reelected I see a clear example of specialization-elimination in effect here. Let's say each of the GOP primary ca...
  • Engineers vs. Druids
    Paul Saffo, at Edge.org (scroll way down): There are two kinds of fools: one who says this is old and therefore good, and the other who say...

Blog Archive

  • ►  2013 (41)
    • ►  July (4)
    • ►  June (7)
    • ►  May (4)
    • ►  April (6)
    • ►  March (8)
    • ►  February (8)
    • ►  January (4)
  • ►  2012 (91)
    • ►  December (8)
    • ►  November (5)
    • ►  October (11)
    • ►  September (8)
    • ►  August (8)
    • ►  July (3)
    • ►  June (10)
    • ►  May (12)
    • ►  April (3)
    • ►  March (9)
    • ►  February (10)
    • ►  January (4)
  • ►  2011 (205)
    • ►  December (11)
    • ►  November (14)
    • ►  October (10)
    • ►  September (18)
    • ►  August (18)
    • ►  July (10)
    • ►  June (15)
    • ►  May (11)
    • ►  April (32)
    • ►  March (24)
    • ►  February (16)
    • ►  January (26)
  • ▼  2010 (163)
    • ►  December (20)
    • ▼  November (20)
      • Game Changing Ideas, and their Impossibility
      • A Thought for Thanksgiving Break
      • Adult Time
      • The Emotions That Rule Me, Part 3
      • The Emotions That Rule Me, Part 2
      • The Emotions That Rule Me, Part 1
      • Dehydrato
      • Matt Yglesias and Engineering
      • The Post-Labor Era
      • Axed
      • Ending Cars?
      • Busy
      • Cars that Drive Themselves, Ctd
      • To my friend
      • Friday Poetry Burst
      • Cars that Drive Themselves, Ctd - Video Edition
      • Electrocuting Yourself To Get Smarter
      • Staying abreast of technology
      • In Defense of Not Voting - UPDATED
      • Modifying SETI for Earth Hunting
    • ►  October (23)
    • ►  September (28)
    • ►  August (28)
    • ►  July (29)
    • ►  June (15)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

hony
View my complete profile