What is Big Science?

<b>[Solar Patroller] "I'm not sure the Tea Party movement wants to dismantle government, ... "</b>

My research suggests that the goal of the various Tea Party and related groups is to reduce the size and scope of government, not dismantle it. To those among us who believe that only government can solve problems - and therefore that bigger government is the very definition of better government - reducing it in size is exactly the same as dismantling it.

This is the classic collectivism-versus-individualism battle. Supporters of each camp have historically been no more than ten to fifteen percent of the population, with the remainder of the population being either either moderates or independents.

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Moderates, for the most part, do not vote. (Even in recent tightly contested elections in the USA, non-voters have been well over 40 % of those elegible.) They tend to poorly inform themselves about the issues, so it takes very little effort for them to convince themselves to stay home on election day.

Independents, for the most part, do vote. But they split their votes, and never vote straight party. It is not unusual for them to support independent candiates or third party candidates. They tend to be p*ss*d at both the Ds and the Rs here in the USA. It takes a lot to keep an independent from voting, but on average the group usually ends up going both ways in fairly even numbers. It is only when circumsatnces become dire that their balance goes decisively to one side or the other. It looks like we may be entering such circumstances.

The smallest group of Tea Party supporters comes from the liberal/progressive leaning groups. No surprise here, since these groups tend to be the ones that believe in big government.
<ul>Liberals SAY they favor freedom, and they believe themselves when they say this. But there is no way you can use the government to prevent large numbers of consenting adults from doing things you dislike <ul><li>selling things at a price you and another consenting adult agree on</li><li>hiring people you do like, not hiring people you don't like</li><li>working for someone you do like, not working for someone you don't like</li><li>etc.</li></ul> without building a really big government. And really big governments tend to suppress freedom.

Non-government (IOW, non-coercive) methods of altering these behaviors would be fine with me, but the people in this group never seem to think that way.</ul>

The second largest group of Tea Party supporters comes from the ranks of the independents.
<ul>No surprise here. As an independent myself I find the Tea Parties a mostly refreshing change in the political landscape. But like most independents I can find problems in any organization. The Tea Parties are good, but not perfect. I suppose that perfection is never going to be an option.

If you are rational, you have to be willing to let other people make a few mistakes. Hopefully, they will return the favor.</ul>

Most Tea Party supporters have come from conservative leaning groups. Hmmm, more conservatives than independents. I find this a little odd, because the social side of conservatism relies on certain big government mechanisms. (It does not have to, but it always has.) This means that social conservatism is **NOT** a Tea Party value.
<ul>Conservatives SAY they favor freedom, and they believe themselves when they say this. But there is no way you can use the government to prevent large numbers of consenting adults from doing things you dislike <ul><li>betting on sports, or betting on cards, or whatever else you might want to bet on</li><li>having sex with whichever consenting adult you choose</li><li>with or without paying for it</li><li>etc.</li></ul> without building a really big government. And really big governments tend to suppress freedom.

Non-government (IOW, non-coercive) methods of altering these behaviors would be fine with me, but the people in this group never seem to think that way.</ul>

<b>[Solar Patroller] " ... but it is the government that is dangerous because it is run by secret societies."</b>

I've always been very resistant to the idea of secret conspiracies. For the most part they seem to do what they do right out in the open. They write about it a lot, and they speak about it a lot. (Remember <i>Mine Kampf</i>?) Us normal people just don't take them seriously, until it is too late.

Once they become politicians, of course, then they like to keep the voter in the dark. We hear a lot about government transparency these days. The thing that amazes me is that we ever allowed any politician to do anything that was not totally documented, recorded, and witnessed. What the h*ll were we thinking?

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Yes, government really is dangerous. It is the one institution men have created that is legally allowed to accomplish its goals by initiating physical force. In each country on this planet, there is one governmet (sometimes with sub-units). And that one government claims and jealously protects its monopoly on the initial use of force.

That has got to be dangerous, in anyone's book. (Origin of the term "necessary evil"? If not, it ought to be.) Most governments use their monopoly-on-force to harm their politicial enemies. If the power structure changes, those on the inside can become those on the outside in an instant.

And that can suck.

Solar Patroller,

I my reply above I basically agreed with you that government is dangerous. I'd like to add that, IMO, the bigger it is the more potential there is for this danger to manifest itself in some sort of anti-citizen action. But ...

... we do seem to need some few things from government. And that need exists at all levels.
<ul><li>Not because some things can't be done without government.</li>
<ul><li>The government provides NO service that cannot also be provided privately.</li></ul>
<li>And not because these few things can be done more efficiently using the tool of government.</li>
<ul><li>Much has been made of the government's ability to do things more efficiently than private business, because government does not have to make a profit.</li>
<li>This sounds great in theory, but I'm still looking for a real world example of it.</li>
<li>I suspect that a few examples do exist. (Even a blind squirrel can find an occasional acorn.)</li>
<li>But there are so many counter examples one can see without exerting any effort at all, it seems like a waste to spend a lot of effort looking for the few exceptions.</li>
</ul>
<li>We need it because we think we do. It is not a rational thing, it is an emotional thing.</li>
<ul><li>I'm just as succeptable as anyone else to this.</li>
<li>I know that private roads are more efficient than public roads. But I have "thing" about public roads, so I'm willing to put up with the pot holes that take forever to fix because the greedy politicians are spending my road use taxes on their re-election instead of the roads.</li>
<li>It makes no sense, even to me. But there it is.</li></ul>
</ul>
And of course, once we have government it begins to grow. OK so far - as a society grows, any government it establishes should grow with it. But soon government begins to grow faster than the society that created it.

And like a cancer, it will eventually kill its host if a way to stop that excess growth is not found.

But well before it kills us, it begins to screw us up. The government becomes newly involved here, then newly involved there. There are always "good reasons" put forward for each new involvment, So we allow them to spend some more money.

But we rarely look back and ask "How did that other thing work out? It was supposed to fix 'Problem X', and then be dismantled. My senator promissed."

And we <u>never</u> seem to stop and ask "Before we use force on ourselves again, what other tools are available?"

This is where my concern about Big Science comes from.

Regards,
LB

It occurs to me that when the government funds science, it basically is paying a million mediocrities to stand in line. To stand in line in front of someone like, say, Edison or Tesla.

This is only part of the problem. But yes, it's a good way to think about it. The more money we (as a group) waste on mediocrities, the less we have to support non-mediocrities like Einstein and Tesla. Or Van Flandern and Keller.

(HISTORICAL NOTE - Einstein and Tesla were active at a time before Big Science. Van Flandern and Keller came after. Some interesting "what if" questions could asked here. Are there any would-be science fiction authors out there in audience land?)

Of course no system can be perfect, and mediocrities are going to receive funding under all possible alternative (including private) funding schemes. So what is the difference?

When governments (IOW politicians) decide who gets nearly 100% of the grants (and therefore who does not), the decisions are always colored by political factors. This does not always crowd out scientific factors, but usually it does relegate the scientific to a lesser role relative to the political. The more this crowding happens the lower the odds that the result will be good science.

Mediocrities are more willing to "cook the books" in order to make the grant approver happy. So when politics is a big factor, mediocrities get more of the available money, non-mediocrities get less of it.

Under some conditions, the political can totally replace the scientific in grant allocation.

&gt;When governments (IOW politicians) decide who gets nearly 100% of the grants ...

Is it really the politicians making the decisions? I get the impression that it is the "scientific politicians" (ie: the members of the various granting bodies within the governmental bureaucracies) who make the decisions after due "peer review". Of course, these "scientific politicians" are heavily invested in the current paradigm, and the outliers are effectively shut off from support by public funding. IMHO this is a systemic flaw that significantly slows scientific progress.