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Comment by roghummal | Hacker News Reader

This is a problem we really shouldn't have. So many smart, dedicated people that we can't fund them all? After they survive how many years of schooling?

The fundamental research these people do is exactly the kind of research that our corporate sponsors won't do.

Where did the government funding go? Please, don't tell me to start a Kickstarter campaign.

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  Where did the government funding go?

Could be government funding is constant (or even increasing), just due to the perverse incentives involved, we're producing PhDs faster than we're producing funded positions for them.

According to [1] "Since 1982, [...] The number of [science and engineering] PhDs awarded annually has also increased [...] from ~19,000 in 1982 to ~36,000 in 2011. The number of faculty positions created each year, however, has not changed, with roughly 3,000 new positions created annually"

[1] http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n10/fig_tab/nbt.2706_F...

The article mentions a leveling off and "even contract(ing) over the last decade" of federal funding. I take the statement at face value, someone else might substantiate it.

Your point is taken. As we're producing more of these PhDs, we should be taking advantage of them; Not solely as cheap labor but as the scientific minds they were trained to be.

It's the price you pay for idiotic "privatize everything" policies. Without contracts and public works, there's no way for Ph D's to get exposure and contacts in industries where they can actually demonstrate their skills.

Australia right now is in the grips of horrifically bad government policy in this regard (the CSIRO pretty much fired 2000 post-docs, so the market is now completely glutted with people with more experience then anyone graduating recently).

And when you get right down to it, this is all a huge stupid waste. We sink the cost of educating these people, then proceed to toss them into menial jobs which don't use those skills at all, don't provide opportunities to maintain them or anything like that?

what does privatization have to do with this? One of the worst abuses of the system (in my opinion) is the IRTA program. This is uncynically called the "post-bac" program among the IRTAs of the NIH, to the cynic it's exactly what it sounds like - it's a postdoc, except even less paid - its unintended consequence is as a dumping ground for undergrads unsure of what they want to do and spending a few years in lab purgatory before committing to grad school, because they have sunk the sunk cost of a couple of years in 'academic' research. The lucky ones go to med school instead.

This program is run by the NIH (not privatized in any way), almost assuredly created with the best of intentions (let's give students a chance to try out science so they can learn to love it, choose it, and increase our national stature!).

I only recently learned about the Post-Bac program, and I wish I had known about it when I was just out of school- I went to a university that wasn't research oriented, and such a program would have been fantastic for picking up the research mindset before going to graduate school I ended up in a lab staff instead, and learned about real research in sort of a trial by fire manner that's been much more stressful than the postbac probably would have been. So it's got it's possible advantages- let alone working for the NIH looks pretty good on a CV.

I would argue that being a lab staff is better, because you know what you're getting into. You were probably paid better, too. "cushy" is not a good thing to "prepare you for grad school", especially not for students who are noncommital (not saying that you are, but a lot of IRTAs are). OTOH, I knew a postbac whose job was to counsel macaques that had pieces of their brains gouged out (and therefore wound up with severe behavioral problems). So her job was pretty stressful.

Upshot: You made the right "choice".

Privatization gets used as a cudgel to force through funding cuts for all sorts of things. What it actually does is cut the legs out of the very private industries which would hire science graduates, because they're usually involved with providing various public services to the government in the first place.

One does not exist without the other, and a steadfast refusal to actually stimulate public works means everyone suffers.

> The fundamental research these people do is exactly the kind of research that our corporate sponsors won't do. Where did the government funding go?

One thing I have observed in the States is that people in the corporate world are extremely shy about discussing politics, or anything related to government – preferring to repeat the "all politicians are assholes" cliché, rather than actually have some kind of coherent position that can be discussed or challenged.

If you want the government to fund things, you have to elect the correct sort of government; and get involved in talking about it, discussing it, and trying to influence it. Currently, what I see is that most people have just enough to get by without being involved in government in any shape or form, which works out well for maintaining the status quo.

Currently, your real government is often the corporate world, which is 100% motivated by how much cash you can earn. They will fund the sort of things that will earn them that cash the quickest. Currently, that seems to be "games where you play with virtual candy", and not "research into the fundamental sciences".

How to change this? I'm not sure (not an American), but I hear about PACs being led by people like Larry Lessig that are very pro-reform, so perhaps talking to them might be a way.

Government funding goes to incumbent researchers, e.g. professors who have already made it. They're deeply incentivised to replicate the destructive system that they evolved themselves to thrive in. Peter Thiel quipped in his reddit AmA: "we have a Gresham's law in science", or briefly, "bad science drives out good"... I don't often find myself agreeing with Thiel but this perspective resonated with me.

Disclaimer: I am running a science kickstarter of sorts (pledge.indysci.org). Why do you think this is bad? Do you think that paternalistically people don't value science as much as they should? And why should we expect our elected officials that squabble over stupid partisan issues be any more enlightened in allocating science funding?

Would love your opinion on The Winnower (thewinnower.com), a new science publishing platform I launched this year (I am also cancer researcher at Virgina Tech). We'd be happy to publish any of your blogs or writings on your experiences with Indysci.

>Where did the government funding go?

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1144

What programmes should be cut to fund them?

The NSA, CIA, TSA, DOD, DEA, the drug war, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 'war' on terror. Also, taxation is at multi-decade lows.

Where did the government funding go?

Here: http://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/

We are training too many people in areas that are not in high demand. Biologists in particular have a hard time getting work and complain about it loudly, quite understandably.

Meanwhile, the US runs out of H1B visas every year importing CS and EE talent from overseas.

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