Friday, January 11, 2013
Eisenhower on the "Scientific Technological Elite"
"Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity....The prospect of domination by the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."
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2 comments:
Ike wasn't fond of the military industrial complex. Whether government or private, research investment is difficult to quantify in terms of payback. It is hard to justify projects which
produce little or nothing. Then again, huge breakthroughs come at unanticipated times.
There has been significant progress in the sharing of gov't R&D with the private sector R&D,
increasing efficiencies and permitting less private investment.
As we would expect, most Gov't
R&D $$ go to DOD, next is health and medical, energy etc. as laid
out in Table 1 here
The US investment in this area
in terms of % GDP trails Israel, Japan, S. Korea, Sweden and Finland, but is more than most countries. 64% of R&D $$ come from the private sector...and in almost every research area, the
impact of nanotechnology is the hot ticket this year.
This was from the same speech, BB. And I actually do support government R & D, just as long as the bureaucrats don't pick the winners and losers and there isn't a truck-load of pork involved in it.
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