MoneylessFuture/ScienceFunding

DouglasReay was at a party last night where the SokalHoax was mentioned in the context of the [Ken Thompson sort of self-reproducing program]. It was posited that one could make a T-Shirt that was its own criticism, by making the front a post modernist deconstruction of the back, and the back a scientific critique of the front, then iterating until both were stable pieces of text.

This led to a discussion of whether Science Funding falls into the same trap as lit-theory groups who cut themselves off by having not only their own shared opinions and vocab, but also their own shared values and facts. It was suggested that string theory funding is more driven by politics and fashion, than by impartial analysis of how to cover all bases while still directing most funding to the most promising routes, and this is reinforced by the difficulty of getting published or finding a department if you're not following the crowd.

The suggested remedy was to to do some funding not via centralised funding councils, but rather by a sort of reputation [micro-finance] scheme whereby leaders of successful projects could use some of their 'reputation capital' to promote an unconnected project for funding and, if this daughter project was also successful, they'd get back their spent capital (plus interest) to be available again for further recommendations.

CategorySerious