What is Big Science?

Here is a first pass at a a high level definition of Big Science. More detail is probably desireable, but for now I want to keep things simple. If you disagree, don't be shy.

<b>Big Science is science that has become big because a very large percentage of the funding is funneled through one organization, our government.</b>

===

To be sure, there are a number of sub units within the government that have proximate control over specific sub units of science. But ultimately a lot of the money that is spent on science is controlled, at least indirectly, by politicians in Washington DC.

Many of the alternate funding sources are indirectly influenced by the government, because of tax policy that says some private spending is deductable and some is not.

I see this level of control that politicians have over what is or is not "official" science as a bad thing. IOW, suppose that we had a Constitutional doctrine of "separation of science and state", similar to the doctrine of separation of church and state. There could then be no state sponsored scientific establishment such as we have now. In such a world, Joe Keller's search for Babarosa might very well have taken a different path.

And Tom's attempts to explore alternatives to BB, QM and Einsteinian Relativity might also have worked out differently.

There would have been many diverse minds making the spending decisions, instead of the smaller number of less diverse minds we actually have. It is likely that most of this hypothetical hord of diverse minds I envision would still take one look at scientific mavericks like Tom and Joe (and you and me) and just chucle.

But not all of them would. I think the odds would improve in our favor. And in an America that had good science instead of Big Science, we would also necessarily have good government instead of Big Government. And that means a lot more of us would be wealthy enough to be patrons of art and science. Making the odds even better.

My first thought on this, is that I would say State rather than Government.

I would like to see Big Science embrace it's rights and duties as the "Fifth Estate." At the moment I think it plays the game of wanting its cake and eating it.

Some definitions of 'state':

<ul><li>the territory occupied by one of the constituent administrative districts of a nation</li>
<li>the group of people comprising the government of a sovereign state</li>
<li>a politically organized body of people under a single government </li>
<li>country: the territory occupied by a nation</li>
<li>A state is a set of institutions that possess the authority to make the rules that govern the people in one or more societies, having internal and external sovereignty over a definite territory. ...</li>
<li></li>
<li>(ADDITIOMAL DEFS THAT ARE NOT RELATED TO OUR INTENDED USE)</li>
<li></li>

<li>the way something is with respect to its main attributes; "the current state of knowledge"; "his state of health"; "in a weak financial state" </li>
<li>state of matter: (chemistry) the three traditional states of matter are solids (fixed shape and volume) and liquids (fixed volume and shaped by the container) and gases (filling the container); "the solid state of water is called ice" </li>
<li>express in words; "He said that he wanted to marry her"; "tell me what is bothering you"; "state your opinion"; "state your name" </li>
<li>a state of depression or agitation; "he was in such a state you just couldn't reason with him" </li>
<li>submit: put before; "I submit to you that the accused is guilty" </li>
<li>express: indicate through a symbol, formula, etc.; "Can you express this distance in kilometers?"</li>
<li>Department of State: the federal department in the United States that sets and maintains foreign policies; "the Department of State was created in 1789"</li></ul>

Some definitions of 'government'

<ul><li>the organization that is the governing authority of a political unit</li>
<li>the system or form by which a community or other political unit is governed; "tyrannical government" </li>
<ul><li>Most of these definitions had examples of use following them that I removed. I left this one in because I personally feel these two words are redundant, and that fact ought to be mentioned more often that it is.</li></ul>
<li>A government is the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects.</li>
<li>The body with the power to make and/or enforce laws for a country, land area, people, or organization</li>
<li>A group of people who hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a given territory</li>
<li>The state and its administration viewed as the ruling political power</li>
<li>... is the organ who assumes the authority for legislate new codes and their execution.</li>
<li>An organized entity that, in addition to having governmental character, has sufficient discretion in the management of its own affairs to distinguish it as separate from the administrative structure of any other governmental unit. See also Population of Interest.</li>

<li></li>
<li>ADDITIONl DEFS THAT DO NOT FIT OUR INTENDED USE</li>
<li></li>

<li>politics: the study of government of states and other political units</li>
<li>Worksites affiliated with local, state, or federal government (can include but is not limited to public service agencies, police, firefighters, military, etc).</li>
<li>The Government was a new wave, art punk band, primraily active in Toronto during the 1979-1981 period.</li>
<li>In grammar and theoretical linguistics, government refers to the relationship between a word and its dependents. There is a traditional notion of government, and a highly specialized definition used in some generative models of syntax.</li>
<li>The Government of Ireland (Rialtas na hireann ) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach, and a deputy prime minister called the Tnaiste. ...</li>
<li>Government Street is the name given to U.S. Route 90 and portions of U.S. Route 98 within the city limits of Mobile, Alabama. It is known as Government Street east of Pinehill Drive and as Government Boulevard west of Pinehill Drive. ...</li>
<li>On the study of political science the executive branch of government has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the republican idea of the separation of powers .</li>
<li>The Royal Thai Government or the Government of Thailand (#3619;#3633;#3600;#3610;#3634;#3621;#3652;#3607;#3618;) is the unitary government of the Kingdom of Thailand. Thailand since 1932 has been a constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democratic system. ...</li>
<li>governmental - relating to or dealing with the affairs or structure of government or politics or the state; "governmental policy"; "public confidence and governmental morale"</li>

</ul>

These two posts still need some editing and pruning. I'll get to that as time permits

I left in the additional defs just because English is amazing in the number of multiple definitions it has for most words. I find this aspect of my native tongue to be fascinating. I know all languages do this, but I have heard that English is worst (or best).

After looking at both lists for a few minutes, I see no obvious reason to favor 'government' over 'state' in our discussion. Why don't we start off agreeing to treat them as synonyms? And I guess we should agree to keep this question in mind, and revisit it whenever a problem comes up that might be resolved by not treating them as synonyms.

===

In hind sight, I think I should have used the term 'federal government' instead of 'government'. To remove a little ambiguity from my definition and discussion.

LB

I've left this a little while, to see what sort of response there'd be. That and of course the fact that I'm bone idle and wanted others to do the work. It is a lot of work, I would say that's it's a book, and a hefty one at that. I have been looking at Kant and Hegel on political philosophy, not for the faint hearted I'm afraid.

To keep this short, I would say that what we need to look at is the corporation and that arm of the state which deals in policing. Now it might sound strange that Kant and Hegel were talking about corporations but they are talking about groups of individuals, within civil society, who come together in the pursuit of a common interest. Policing will sound strange as well but here we are talking about the historical development of the state with regard to the "unfolding" of reason. The state policing apparatus evolves to meet the needs of recognition of individual rights. The rights of the individual and corporation, to follow their legitimate needs, in civil society, will come into conflict. That section/s of the state apparatus that deals in the policing of civil society is expressly forbidden to be "political." In fact a major role is to be the defense of civil society against vested political interests. Of course this policing role does deal with actual criminality but the bulk of the state apparatus is involved in arbitrating legitimate conflicts of interest.

Again, of course, this doesn't stop those state functions from "dabbling" in politics but the particular vice suffered from is primarily that of the bureaucratic mind set. A mind set that corporations also suffer from, and we should be aware that the policing role of the state deals primarily with corporations and only abstractedly, if at all, with the individual in civil society.

Okay, we did have a major crisis in physics, and it coincided with a major crisis in global society. Einstein's relativity was chosen against what I think we should call Lorentz, Poincare, Riemann relativity. It has been mentioned in many articles that Einstein's genius lay in resolving theoretical conflicts. In other words, solutions that were most likely to be grasped by those given to corporate group think. These people are not stupid, evil, lacking in imagination, or even hostile to new thinking. Their first priority will always be to keeping a steady ship. What's insidious is that it can turn all rather nasty, yet they are safe in the knowledge of their group reasonableness.