Is Science As Important As Football? | Hacker News Reader

Is Science As Important As Football?

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55 pointsjlhamilton48 comments

Its an aside, but it always frustrates me to hear about the cuts at NASA and how the budget simply won't allow this or that project when every city in America seems to think it needs an $800mm tax-payer funded arena to "stimulate the local economy."

No, you don't get moon bases, hover cars and cures for cancer. You spent your allowance on football, remember?

I don't want to spoil your rant by throwing numbers on it, but unfortunately that doesn't add up. Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis is (I think) the newest stadium in the NFL. Wikipedia tells me that the cost to taxpayers was $620 million. Let's say that the average stadium lasts 20 years, and note that there are 4 major sports leagues in the US with about 30 teams each, so that an average of 6 such arenas that must be built every year, at a total taxpayer cost of $3.7 billion each year.

NASA's budget for 2009 is $17.6 billion. And obviously that's just a fraction of total federal science spending, much of which lives under DoD, DoE, NIH, etc...

I needled the stadiums because they were an easy target. Its more of a philosophic rant stemming from a disappointment in overall resource allocation. We spend so many trillions on entertainment like football. We use our land, our human capital, our tv transmitters, our precious time... on giant zero-sum distractions. Our heroes play games.

Space flight is life. Will the last humans have to admit that we didn't make it off the planet in time to save our species because we were too busy watching football and getting drunk?

Even if we never "make it to the stars", there are countless worlds of resources just floating around in asteroid fields in our own solar system. We just have to go get them. I'm not advocating we go "all work and no play" here, I just can't help but think we should be trying a little bit harder.

"Distractions"?

Distractions from what?

You're idealizing life. There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. You get a certain number of years to fill up with "distractions", and then you die.

You may not appreciate sports, but they bring joy to millions of people -- probably to many millions more than NASA does, and in a greater capacity. Denigrating that is extraordinarily narrow-minded.

I think the goal would be to find a way to bring similar joy to millions that has a lasting positive effect, rather than two hours of entertainment.

I'm not denying that millions are entertained by sports, but it isn't "work" in the sense that work = force * distance. Distance in sports is zero, so it's a lot of force, but nothing comes of it. It doesn't go anywhere.

There are lots of joyful things, entertaining things, that actually move society and life in a positive direction. We need to spend more time celebrating those things and the heros of science and math for our kids.

If parents celebrated winners of the science olympiad as much as they celebrate michael phelps, then the world would be a very different place.

I think part of the difference is that with sports, you can see that it takes a lot of energy to train to win a swim match, but you can't see the energy expended to win a science competition. Intelligence is something we believe you either have or do not have regardless of the amount of training, but that's just not true.

It takes a lot of work and training and accomplishment to be a great scientist, just like it takes a lot of work and training and accomplishment to be a great athlete.

>There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe.

I disagree. There are distinct levels: Type 0, 1, 2, 3 and beyond if we're not limited to the universe at hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

So you're saying that there is some fundamental, a priori reason for humanity to aspire to a higher level on this scale than it currently occupies?

What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

In the old days, it was the quest to expand the U.S. from the atlantic to the pacific, but the pacific wasn't quite far enough. Now we must expand into the farthest reaches of space.

Our heroes have always played games, but the games before were wars. It got us this far. You're not merely looking at a problem with our society and culture; you are looking at a universal aspect of human nature.

Your numbers are essentially right. Most hockey teams share the basketball stadium, though, and almost all soccer stadiums are shared. But stadium costs are rising: both the new Yankee Stadium and the new Cowboys Stadium cost over $1 billion.

However, what makes your numbers very conservative (in terms of overestimating public costs) is that few stadia are fully funded by the public. Most of them are partially funded by the team or the league.

(Amusing notes: Montreal's stadium, built for the Olympics and used by the Expos, cost 1.4 billion dollars, but .9 billion was in interest. The world's most expensive stadium, the new Wembley, cost 1.5 billion.)

There is also added infrastructure cost, police cost and more. But you're right that the football budget is less than the Space budget. But why is ANY public money being spent on personal entertainment when it could be spent on progress? another 4 billion a year could pay for a lot of research and scholarships.

The government doesn't give all of its money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spends money on entertainment for the same reason you don't give all your money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spend some money (including time) on entertainment.

The only way that could happen is if we, as a species, could somehow dedicate all of our time to "worthy pursuits", but we can't. We need downtime and entertainment, and by "need", I mean, need.

My first paragraph is not sarcastic. It really is the same reason, just writ large.

(This argument is one layer of "why?" beyond the more obvious, but less interesting, point that these stadiums get built because they pull enough in tax revenues in to justify it, or at least so the municipalities assume.)

According to The Brookings Institution, "a new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment. No recent facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues.

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/9474/No_85_Sports...

Sure. However, Political Will is the deciding factor here. And, many people want sports stadiums in their cities and won't abandon their politicians for agreeing to build them. I am critical of our cultural perceptions of the role of government, not of the government as such.

Have you ever heard of "bread and circuses?"

Wow... I'd never heard of it. It's like nothing ever changes... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

Of course we have heard of the comparison between gladiators and football players, but I never realized people back then were as vehemently opposed to that sort of thing as they are now.

I thought it was a growing consciousness, but really it is just me becoming more aware of people who agree with me... But people like me have lived forever and if it's been 5000 years without any change, why should I expect anything will change through the course of my life?

From the point of view of the average taxpayer, deliverables on space missions are too few and far between.

When you build an arena (even for non mainstream sport), you make money off of taxing the Franchise, but more substantially off of the local businesses that opened up to serve the fans of the team. Over priced beer, food, and jerseys can make a lot of money if there's a well-liked team behind it all.

Plus, people LIKE it. It's a regional pride thing.

If you're an average guy, do you want to see three astronauts orbit the earth for 6 months, or go down town with your buddies, get drunk, and watch a game?

That's why the average guy votes for the new stadium over NASA.

This is wrong. A number of economic studies show that taxpayer-funded stadiums reallocate dollars, they don't help local business on net-- they just increase the value of the sports team.

https://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/302 http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv23n2/coates.pdf

Teams and regional pride would still exist without taxpayer-funded stadiums.

Perhaps, but the taxes are usually focused on tourism (hotel and auto rental taxes), which is the sector that is helped the most by new stadia.

Also consider the loss of business that happens when a team leaves, such as when the Seattle Supersonics left for Oklahoma City. Even if there isn't a net gain for building a new stadium, there may be a local gain at another city's expense, such as between Seattle and Oklahoma City.

There is an eternal tension between elite opinion's love for democracy and its distaste for the tastes of the common man. (We, on the right side of the education and income bell curves, qualify as "elites").

I have a distaste for democracy but not for the common man. As far as I am concerned, democracy is mob rules at best and two wolves and one sheep deciding what to eat for dinner at worst.

As for the common man, I don't give a damn if joe sixpack watch football games rather than conduct scientific experiments.

The common man's opinions determine the elections, though. It's the common man's money that funds NASA and provides grants to researchers. Whether you care or not, the common man is a powerful force in determining the future.

Football is a very important pastime to a lot of people. Just playing devil's advocate here: can you name one reason why those NASA programs are more important than the football arena, without making reference to your own subjective value system which would be at odds with that of the ardent football fan's?

Football can and would exist without subsidies. Spending public funds to support private industry is a bad economic decision. Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate.

“debating gladiator reform while Rome burns…”

Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate.

If activity X is to matter in people's lives, it needs to be scalable. To be scalable it needs to be profitable. Since the U.S. government does not operate on a profit motive, the spending on the space program will have as little long term impact as the Zheng He fleets. You should read this article: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-f...

perhaps the federal government should fund commercial endeavors in space like they fund commercial endeavors in sports.

Lots of people would pay to go to space if they could afford it. Make it affordable.

The federal government doesn't fund sports at all. Stadium subsidies are usually a municipal or state matter at best.

It doesn't matter which entity signs the check, it all comes from the tax payers. If the feds weren't paying for the roads, the municipalities would. It's all the same.

Football can and would exist without subsidies"

Yeah, but it'd exist in a different city. City's have to compete for the franchise. It's a supply and demand thing (LOTS more cities than franchises).

How about limiting health calamities caused by hypertension or congestive heart failure? http://ims.ivv.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/news/pressrel/2008/08-...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Spinoff has a nice list.

don't forget velcro and memory foam

The Apollo program inspired a generation of engineers that got America on the fast track to victory in the Cold War. Furthermore, NASA has facilitated a great deal of technological and scientific innovation in the past few decades, both directly and indirectly.

It is understandably difficult for a politician to justify this value to an apathetic audience when NASA projects are so expensive and they rarely provide any directly observable positive economic impacts. But I don't think it's unfair for noonespecial to assert that the sciences should be prioritized above something whose sole purpose is entertainment. It's interesting to observe how something like NASA can shape a society, public discourse, and the economy in a positive direction. I wish it could be quantifiable to express this value to the voting base, but I doubt it can be done.

Important to whom? To the average person-in-the-street, the answer is no. Science isn't terribly entertaining, lacks an easily understood competitive aspect and isn't accessible. Football, on the other hand, is something people can and do play amongst themselves and can be watched/enjoyed at many levels of competition.

To society as a whole is a different question. But I'm not sure it leads to a different answer. Billions of people watched the World Cup over several weeks. I can't imagine science, short of things like positive-net-energy fusion or curing AIDS having anywhere near that much interest.

I've studied science and have been fortunate enough to be able to create scientific software. I'm also comfortable with allowing people to do what they want, and pay attention to what they want. I'm not able to do football professionally, but I can (and do) do this science stuff professionally. Different strokes for different folks, eh?

Let's not confuse science and NASA too much in the discussion here I'd say. Flying the existing shuttle back and forth to space for 3 decades is as much dog and pony as it is science.

I'd like to agree with part of this article though. The science olympiad would have been a LOT more fun if the contest was to create the biggest explosion instead of the strongest toothpick bridge.

I thought the title was flamebait. ARE YOU KIDDING! science is more important than football. But once I went through the article, he does make some valid points.

I just wish that he hadn't inserted so many pics from his new book - now the article smells of a sales job. His argument should stand independent of his book

My middle school was willing to make us play frisbee dodgeball (with the expected results), and then spent millions tearing apart a couple of classrooms after some kids dropped mercury on the floor and stomped on it.

I think Phys. Ed. would be a good target level for danger in the classroom.

To contrast, at my school a teacher dropped a bottle of mercury while showing us how it ran away from heat. They cleaned it up with a mop while we played with it.

I don't remember my science classes to be that exciting. Then again, my sports teacher didn't like football either.

Usually in US schools there are two parts to a science course: the lectures and the labs. The lectures and homework do get boring and tedious if you are really not into that particular field. However, labs are meant to not only show students science in practice but to show how cool it can be. By doing experiments themselves and seeing real-life demonstrations by teachers, some few students will become interested enough in the field to persue it seriously, and others will at least gain more perspective on the world around them.

However, with our misguided obsession with safety, science education has been neutered of this exiting part and all that's left is dry formulas and obscure vocabulary.

His complaint is that science education is boring, but the same could be said for any number of subjects in school. The irony is that it's the same scientists who've created performance targets for educators to hit in the form of standardized testing. This has led to unimaginative teaching and a strictly check-box approach to learning by running down a long list of curriculum items in a very limited time frame.

People creating performance targets for students to hit on standardized tests are not scientists.

football is only a sport if we didnt had sience we would be like chimps.

is much more important

sience

Interesting analogy. I would say the danger isn't quite in students injuring themselves in the classroom as much as it is giving destructive chemicals to students. Sure some of them can handle it, but the deviant ones will create havoc given the opportunity. In football there is a certain physical discipline allowed, where as in science its just the principals office, which can be better than class. Good analogy, but I think far from raising the argument...

Let's all worry about the "deviants". Conformity for the win!

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