Should government fund science? A Soho Forum debate
reason.com
AEI's Tony Mills and British biochemist Terence Kealey debate whether science needs government funding.

Here’s the YouTube video on Reason’s channel (event starts about 10 min in), or you can download it at the link for this post.

There’s no text transcription AFAIK, so I’ll try my best to represent both sides fairly. I do have my own opinions here, so I recommend you watch the video (at least the opening remarks, which is ~35 min long, just after introductions).

Here’s the prompt:

Government must play a role in fostering scientific and technological progress by funding basic research.

The definition of “basic research” is a bit squishy, but the definition they seem to be going with is science without a specific goal, such as studying chemistry not to solve a given program, but to see where the research goes. The opposite is “mission science,” which is research in a given area to achieve some specific goal important to the government, like weapons. They both agreed that the latter should be funded as needed (e.g. COVID-19 vaccine).

For the affirmative (Dr. Mills):

  • private companies have little interest in basic research
  • government funded basic research has produced immense value (example given: ammonia composition, which wasn’t economically useful for 100 years so likely wouldn’t have happened as quickly)
  • government funded research is often economically viable, but more importantly, it has non economic value that private research doesn’t provide (e.g. man on the moon)

For the negative (Dr. Kealey):

  • publicly funded research “crowds out” private research (i.e. public research doesn’t add more scientists, it just moves them from private to public sector)
  • private research is more economically viable
  • private companies need to fund research or they’ll lose to their competition

And some prompts for discussion:

  • What is your opinion on the prompt, should the government be funding basic research?
  • Who do you think won? Do you agree with the voting? Why?
  • If you’re against the resolution, would you go further and prefer to not fund “mission science” as well? Why or why not?
  • Should your government increase or decrease the amount it’s spending on basic science research?

And a final question: do you want to see more of this kind of post?

  • PennomiEnglish
    5•10 months ago

    If we’re talking about libertarianism the philosophy rather than whatever modern American Libertarianism is, then strictly speaking no, the government should not fund research. It only exists to prevent people from harming other people.

    But as with anything based in reality, practicality beats purity, and the ROI of virtually all science research is positive. So even if the government shouldn’t be doing it, it’s better for all of us if it does.