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Social Structures and Big Science
by Raymond M. Coulombe

I like big questions. What's the meaning of life? Is love all we really need? What happens when protons collide at speeds near the speed of light? Yeah, the big questions.

The first two questions are the sort that can be answered without major sponsorship. Nice if you can get it, mind you, but not really necessary. Those sort of questions can be approached by individuals and small groups in the comfort of your local bar or coffee shop. It's those other big questions requiring special equipment and training that cause problems.

How do we do big science not covered by the beer budget? There are a number of ways, and the sort of support has a lot to do with the type of science that gets done.

In an earlier editorial, I pointed out that collaboration between individuals, worldwide, over the Internet, can facilitate a lot of freelance science. Sort of a Mad-Scientists-Unite model. That works for a lot of things and does allow for some cool science, but there are some things that can't be solved on the cheap. Some science requires honking big atom smashers consuming the energy equivalent of four million margarita blenders.

How to finance such things? They are important. What inquiring mind wouldn't want to know the basic structure of the universe? Aren't space probes nifty? Isn't science often shiny and fascinating? Say, how about those cool photos from the Hubble Space Telescope? Isn't all that stuff worth doing? I think so.

Let's take that wonder basket of stuff we call basic science and put it in our shopping cart. It might come in handy. We don't know for sure if it will. While it's true basic science gives birth to some essential technologies, we don't know what will pay and what will prove to be a colossal welfare program for scientists. That's the problem with basic science; we don't what will be useful until long after the bills have been paid. Maybe all we'll get from the manned space program is Tang.

Attempts to guess up front what will pay doesn't have that great a record. While it might be fine for developing technology, say, commercializing something that works in the lab, it doesn't work all that great for something that's totally unknown. For example, had primitive man been inclined to do that sort of thing, we'd still be perfecting the flint arrowhead. Don't get me wrong, we'd probably have really great flint arrowheads, but that wouldn't solve the problem of the mastodon shortage. Basic science is where humanity finds the answers to questions we haven't asked yet.

So, who's going to finance the great stuff? Communists? Yeah right, like they were living in a technological wonder land. The problem with Communists is that they don't have any money. Not a good idea when expensive science is in the shopping cart. Communists do have one advantage, they can take whatever resources there are and damn well use them for science, if that's the goal.

Pure Capitalism is pretty good for generating money. Let's be honest here, you don't have to like it, just accept that Capitalism makes money, lots of money. The problem with capitalists is that they want to keep their money. That's how Capitalism works. None of that silly social spending and certainly none of that pie in the sky science stuff. Right.

There are darn few purely capitalistic societies in the world, and none of those are very large. The US and the EU? Please, don't make me laugh. There is plenty of socialism in the mix. The key for socialists is to rob the capitalists, but not so terribly that they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The socialism part of government spreads the funds around to things like pensions, health plans, armies, and occasionally atom smashers. The system works, but how focused is it?

Then there is Fascism. Hey, it worked for the Nazi's. Now that's focus. Take a totalitarian state in partnership with corporations and stuff gets done. Nasty nasty weapons of mass destruction stuff, but also basic raw science. Give scientists loads of money, secrets bases and a slave army, and science may just happen. The Nazi war machine worked. Science happened, even some stuff I'm rather fond of. No, not more efficient genocide, rockets. One of the allied prizes of war was the beginnings of a space program. The US and USSR grabbed a lot of machinery and scientists during the Third Reich's going out of business sale.

So Let's put Fascism down as a qualified success. They'd have rated better had the results been less nasty. My guess is the system lacked proper feedback loops. Capitalism-Socialism sort of works too, but often lacks focus. Long range plans don't last past the next election.

Then there is the special case pile of money for weird science: black budgets. The US sets aside billions of dollars free from public oversight. The system sort of works like a cross between the Fascism and Socialism model. The funds are robbed from the capitalism part of the economy and applied in a manner much like the Fascism model.

I have some quibbles with the black budget system. Mainly, due the very nature of the system, we don't know what they are doing with the money. Dammit, some of it was once my money too! President Ronald Reagan allowed for the release of some military science into the public sector, things like GPS technology, but it hasn't happened much since Ronny's day. Due to the secrecy of much of the science being done, and the nature of government bureaucracies, it's likely that most of the science will never see the light of day. Ok, in war time, the results tend to show up in the form of things such as radioactive craters.

It bugs me; basic science is important. Some life and death issues for the human race are at stake here. It's important this stuff gets done. We don't know what will come in handy in the future. How much should we spend on basic science? It is a gamble. The pay offs could be huge, or they could go bust.

Wait a minute, that's the answer: it's a gamble. Figure out how much a society spends gambling and that's the amount that should be spent on basic science. Like casino gambling, most attempts will be losers, but occasionally, the jackpot is hit. The social structure that is most conducive to a gambling mentality is the social structure best suited for basic science.

No, that's no it. I know too many gamblers. The gambling model would have us buying super conducting super colliders instead of making the car payment. There has got to be a better way.

Maybe we should do a little basic science on economics first.

I don't know how to get there, but I know it should be done. We can't spend all our time developing better flint arrowheads. The big questions need answers. A way should be found to do the big science in a saner manner. Wait a minute, who am I to promote sanity? Let's just do basic science, finance it in as many different ways possible and let Darwin sort out the best.

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