I submit that Astrophysics run on the model of American Idol is a recipe for civilizational disaster.
In other news, Zuckerberg and others launch a new $3 million Breakthrough Prize stating, "The Breakthrough Prize is our effort to put the spotlight on these amazing heroes. Their work in physics and genetics, cosmology, neurology and mathematics will change lives for generations and we are excited to celebrate them"
Prizes are also essentially worthless to promote science, people need money from the beginning to do science, if they don't, then there isn't going to be anything to receive the prize for.
I think if they were serious about supporting science, they'd be giving out medium-sized early researcher grants (maybe £/$10k-100k), but then they'd actually have to think about who to fund and take on the high risk involved in science. This way they get to take credit by osmosis for important developments after the fact.
Yes, that would be great too. I think it's purely marketing and it has nothing to do with promoting science.
Actually, on the same model, they also could give 1000 $3000 prizes, that wouldn't make a very exciting press release, but I would posit it would do much more good, because it's much more likely to target someone that really needed a bit of positive reinforcement, rather than the guy that already received lots of award for an important discovery. And this is especially important in field were prizes are rare.
But now it feel like the equivalent of 7 guy/gals winning the lottery. I highly doubt it will change much in their research (if not negatively if they decide to retire) and they wont be able to invest it in other people's work, except with great difficulty or lack of agency. I fail to see where science is gaining much.
Well, it's my understanding that most prize money won by scientists are not reinvested in their research, meaning that it act more as a regular enterprise bonus than a kind of research grant. Is it false?
In that case, I think it was proven than passing a certain mark, the amount of money in a prize get diminishing returns quickly, thus the proposal that it's more interesting to give to a lots of scientists a small sum (not necessarily $3000, that was derived from the $3 million) than for a few a big one.
All the money I win for anything goes back into my research, for what it's worth. Perhaps because I'm on the poor end for an academic mathematician.
However, it's grant money, not prize money, that I get. I have no idea how on earth I could ever win a prize for math since I'm not in line for the Fields, Abel, or Alfried Krupp prize.
I was and am at the same time not sarcastic. I would be genuinely thrilled to get $3000 and am aware that it is a stupid small amount :) There are not many smaller prizes in math that award money.
I think you have accurately summarized the existing academic world in one paragraph. If only 10% of grads get a professorship, someone much higher paid will be taking credit for most of your work, etc.
They made a policy decision to work in the existing structure, not try something new. They seem fairly honest and serious about it. May not agree with their plan, but thats a different issue.
It would seem the X Prizes made it easier for research and development teams to raise money. Having a tangible $x million prize at the end broadens the field of potential sponsors.
maybe. But cash prizes can be anti-motivational, and can negatively affect reasoning (this is a known phenomenon). It's probably a huge part of the reason why the federal scientific granting landscape is broken, btw, so the status quo is not much better. Moreover, only one person gets the prize, so a lot of people will make an upfront investment and get burnt out by their loss. Finally you have to consider, who is the best equipped to make those sorts of upfront investments and are they the people you want deciding the course of science? The really smart grad student whose intellectual prowess is being exploited by the professors is not going to be in that position.
a lot of people will make an upfront investment and get burnt out by their loss
This is not a bug, this is an essential feature. This effectively generates matching funding, and thus multiplies the amount of money and effort spent on a problem.
It is hard to figure out which idea works best; some inevitably won't work out and result in a loss -- but in this case much of the loss is covered by outside investors (including those investing their own time), competing with each other for the prize.
Also, I would trust people putting their own money down more than a grant committee, and people in general tend to be far more efficient when trying to beat competition, not when working on a set project.
Also, a smart graduate student is likely to be better at producing research, not at writing grant applications. Let the results speak for themselves.
See also science crowdfunding like Microryza https://www.microryza.com/ current headline of the first research proposal shown: "How does a parasite create zombie-like behavior?" I guess it's a good time to be a researcher who is working on something where you can fit trendy internet words like "zombie" in the title.
Has it ever been different? As long as science depends on funding, and funding always has (and always will) come from people who know and understand little of science, so persuading them to part with their money, and to give it to your particular project, is quite an essential requirement -- although of course scientists are usually better off delegating that persuading to professionals.
I can think of a range of models for getting funding for research:
- convince a single person or small group knowledgeable in your field of study to invest in your research or fund it yourself
- convince a non-profit that your research will have social impact
- convince a corporation that your research will pay off
- convince a government body knowledgeable in your field of study that then invests tax money on behalf of the general public
- convince the general public to vote directly for your research with dollars
You can be sure that the type of research that gets done is going to be different with each of these. Certainly the last two are going to be widely different even though they are both pulling funding from people who generally understand little about the science they are funding.
Sure -- but I think (2), (4) and (5) are all forms of American Idol; all of these require persuasion of non-scientists, in case of (4) the persuasion simply happens at the point when the government body gets established and funded.
And I'm not sure there is really such a big difference between (4) and (5) -- most of the time when we actually see general public funding science directly in any appreciable amount, it's done through some form of a private foundation that is not very different from a "government body knowledgeable in your field" in how it operates.
In other news, Zuckerberg and others launch a new $3 million Breakthrough Prize stating, "The Breakthrough Prize is our effort to put the spotlight on these amazing heroes. Their work in physics and genetics, cosmology, neurology and mathematics will change lives for generations and we are excited to celebrate them"
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2014-breakthrough-pr...
So... yeah we're already there in some sense for better or worse.