A second post where I am going to shamelessly channel a post by Joe Landman. In On dynamical systems and climatology Joe Landman ends with the following (emphasis mine)
I am not arguing for or against AGW in this piece, I am taking a decidedly neutral stance. I am pointing out that dynamical systems may behave differently than political types, who may not be aware of dynamical system behavior in the presence of sources and sinks of energy, may believe. This analysis is best left up to the scientific community. But you need to make sure that they have the funds and equipment to do the work. And hopefully, freedom from political biases while pursuing the research as well as getting funds for the research.
His post is about climate modeling, but one could generalize this to many fields, and even to doing research in a commercial setting, like developing a new drug or theory. It’s something that I have heard Jeff Bezos say as well. You have to give something with significant potential the opportunity to fail. If things work, which they could if the underlying hypothesis is correct, it will be worth it. If not, at least you know that you gave it your best shot. This is especially true for scientfic discovery
Funding science. It’s important
A second post where I am going to shamelessly channel a post by Joe Landman. In On dynamical systems and climatology Joe Landman ends with the following (emphasis mine)
His post is about climate modeling, but one could generalize this to many fields, and even to doing research in a commercial setting, like developing a new drug or theory. It’s something that I have heard Jeff Bezos say as well. You have to give something with significant potential the opportunity to fail. If things work, which they could if the underlying hypothesis is correct, it will be worth it. If not, at least you know that you gave it your best shot. This is especially true for scientfic discovery