Before Nobels: Gifts to and from rich patrons were early science’s currency | Hacker News Reader

Before Nobels: Gifts to and from rich patrons were early science’s currency

theconversation.com

24 pointsVigier7 comments

A more accurate title might have been "before NSF."

The practical effect of the shift from patronage to grants is a transition from multipolar to unipolar science. Any one rich patron may or may not have an instinct for what research deserves support, but their collective judgment should be a fairly wise crowd. Few rich people were born yesterday.

In a grant-funded ecosystem, even multiple funding institutions which are branches of multiple governments tend to merge into one big meta-institution, with one big opinion. This is how we get intellectual monocultures across many fields, especially fields without practical feedback from a commercial application. One big opinion is hard to change. Unfortunately, science is kind of about changing our minds...

Lee Smolin credits this monoculture with the lack of progress in the field of physics over the past decade, and the popularity of string theory, in The Trouble with Physics.

Monoculture is reinforced by the Internet. The internet is a meme machine. In yesteryear, not knowing what other people are doing was the norm. Not knowing is good for independent thought.

There are plenty of billionaires rich enough to support scientists for their whole careers, and certainly much more than in the past. So to make your point, you have have to argue that some sort of cultural/status effect is keeping unconventional scientists from just taking billionaire money, or disincentivizing them from giving it away.

Isn't the existing system of grants disincentivizing billionaires from giving the money away? "My taxes goes to X institution" "I donated to Y institution"

I'd go with your second choice. We have not run out of clever people. Plenty of billionaires but not plenty of aristocrats.

How many wealthy people are like the Koch brothers? Not that many. Most of them are concerned with status only.

Several countries offer tax schemes to support local movie productions: private investment in local movie production is incentivized by way of tax breaks to the investors.

I am not aware of equivalent tax breaks offered to investors to support science or technology development, it is seems to me it could be a great way to incentivize scientific progress.

Does anyone know why tax schemes to support science are not being used?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com