Sorry so long. > From: john hull [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Which hits on my original remark: if we have two types > of scientists, Basic & Applied, and if business is the
Bad premise. Research labor is very non-specific. That's not to say that some engineers and scientists prefer doing "basic" vs. "applied" research -- they do. But, our personal preferences are not necessarily what we get to do at work. I have met some really good basic researchers that work in industry on applied projects (I know they're good because I have read their MS and PhD theses/dissertations and/or talked to their former professors). > only funder of research, then the firms will be hiring > both types since the Basics will portray themselves as > Applieds to get jobs. With gov't. funding basic > research, then the Basics get to do basic research at > taxpayer expense, but the firms can apply the Applieds > to applied research at greater efficiency because > there are no Basics getting in the way. Even granting your premise of the highly specific scientist/engineer classes, personal preference (to be doing one type of work) does not imply comparative advantage. And, more importantly, in my experience, there is a need to have engineers and scientists that are both "applied-thinking" and "basic-thinking" on the team. The combination results in synergies, and segregrating the two types results in inefficiencies. > The economic > benefits of this separation outweighs the cost of > paying for basic research. The world is better off. This is certainly an unwarranted leap of logic for the reasons cited above, but also because it is highly unscientific to claim that the disutility to taxpayers is outweighed by the productivity of increased knowledge due to basic and/or applied research. By what standard do you balance these factors? Further, you have not advanced a metric by which we could discern whether the amount of basic research or total research (basic + applied) is socially optimal. > That's not to say that basic research is not valuable, > but it evidently follows strange and unpredictable > paths. But, so does applied research. NASA has claimed many useful things that have come from their programs. ---------------- I would also like to raise an objection to the supposed distinction between basic and applied research. This is, at best, a conceptual continuum with a fuziness akin to the economic distinction between goods of the first order and goods of higher orders. Conceptually, it is easy to imagine a specific process, such as tree->lumber->chair, but a tree is also a consumer good, and so is lumber. Likewise for research. Is my company's current work on Buckytubes (we have built and operate a pilot plant that produces them, and we are attempting to produce more and higher quality tubes, and recover them more efficiently) basic or applied? What if an existing separation or production technology is applied in such a way that leads to a fundamental discovery? Applied research can lead to basic discoveries, it's not just a one-way street. People such as James Watt, who was an applied researcher in the field of steam engines, contributed considerably to the basic fields of mathematics and physics. Indeed, virtually the whole basic field of thermodynamics was developed by applied science. Lavoisier, the founder of modern chemistry, was launched into his career by two applied projects: lighting the streets of Paris and developing a new process to produce saltpeter. It was these that led to and funded his later experiments in which he proved the conservation of mass, and discovered how oxygen functions in combustion. Carnot's work on engines led to the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics. Clausius, building on Carnot's work, proposed the property of entropy. Kelvin's work on engines led to the concept of available energy. Joule bridged the gap between heat and physical work, again working with simple engines. Gibbs, combining all of these insights, published signal works in chemistry, widely reknowned as fundamental *basic* discoveries in chemistry. So, there is a very impressive example of applied work on engines leading to Gibb's insights on chemical equilibria and chemical thermodynamics, including free energies, energies of formation, and all of the mathematical techniques that underlie virtually all of modern chemistry. I guess my points are: the claim that discoveries only go basic->applied is a poor one; the claim that basic discoveries are somehow more value-productive is extremely subjective and hardly proven; and the claim that applied and basic research are like oil and water is just plain bananas. -------------- Lastly, I would like to raise a point about the mix of applied vs. basic research. It is well known that patents encourage applied research while not encouraging basic research. If we wish to change the mix more toward basic, we could weaken or eliminate patents. Or, if we wish to increase the total amount of research, we could give companies dollar-for-dollar tax credits for research. Right now, companies that reinvest earnings in research save the corporate tax, but that's not quite the same. Of course, the total amount of research by industry could be increased by lowering or eliminating the corporate tax, too. Gil Guillory, P.E. Process Design and Project Engineering KBR, KT-3131B email [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone 713-753-2724(w) or 281-362-8061(h) or 281-620-6995(m) fax 713-753-3508 or 713-753-5353
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