The issue he is pointing out is why are professors different than any other job? why should govt protect professors and not plumbers?
Not everybody can (or wants to) be a professor. Would still be nice if I could get tenure, though.
The “free market” is interested only in producing widgets that can be sold for profit and any “research” they do is only in support of that objective. And the “govt” gets to decide on public research funding because – get ready for a major surprise – the “govt” IS the people. And people – that is, society – have a long-term interest in the pursuit of knowledge and scientific progress that transcends the free market interest in building better can openers.
It was, and it is. And it’s more important than ever. Most basic research is publicly funded. Only a very few of the largest and most forward-thinking companies do any research that doesn’t have a fairly specific product focus with the prospect of short-term ROI. The rest is all public funding. Additionally, private-sector research may be subject to all manner of bureaucratic meddling for competitive and other reasons – did very much useful research on the dangers of tobacco come from tobacco companies?
It doesn’t. Tenure and its rules and conditions are constructs of academic institutions. And they traditionally provide it because academic freedom is critical in scientific research. It’s not clear how this would apply to a plumber.
I don’t share your confidence in govt. There’s two ways to do this. You can elect governing officials and hope they do what you want. The second is to keep govt to a bare minimum and to let people make their own decisions. You opt for the former; I for the latter. I trust that is an accurate articulation of our differences. ?
don’t universities and colleges engage in such research? I would think that private institutions would have an incentive to distinguish themselves by engaging in such research. certainly that is born out by the history of this nation.
I’m confused as to what government is made up of, if not people. Lizards?
And it’d be nice to get a CEO’s salary, a teacher’s hours and an employee discount everywhere.
I am glad you agree that there isn’t any problem. Walker represents the government, and the government IS the people, so he is clearly expressing the people’s will. And the unions, who are NOT the government, and therefore don’t express the will of the people, should shut up and not interfere.
Regards,
Shodan
Sort of, but let me spell it out a bit more clearly. I opt for the idea that the federal government has the benefit of being guided on research priorities by institutions like the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council which were set up for that express purpose, and directs such funding through the expertise of major agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy, and NASA, and many others.
Your proposal, as far as I can tell, is that Joe Sixpack should personally direct research funding decisions that are guided by the truthiness of his gut, or possibly through the product choices he makes such as the beer he buys, because in your world all research would be in private hands, right? 
Where do you think universities get the majority of their research funding? (Hint: from the evil federal government.) And the majority of that money is for basic research. Private institutions (i.e.- businesses) are in the business of making money. Period. That’s why they exist. If they deviate from that goal the shareholders or stakeholders can justifiably sue them, fire the board of directors, etc.
You seem to be engaged in the same kind of thinking as the other poster who seems to believe that universities should be shut down or turned into trade schools for plumbers.
Those are not mutually exclusive – the government might be made up of lizard people!
In any case, what is known for sure is that whoever or whatever makes up the government is irredeemably EVIL! 
Or perhaps the decisions could be taken by the absolute version of final democracy and the free market: local televised game shows, as popularized in many dystopian films. The contestants vying for approval from the masses.
All decisions.
As an alum of UW-Madison, I’d like to say, “Thanks, Scott”
Sincerely, deeply, with all my heart. really!
Based upon my experience the faculty could use a nice purge.
The ant-intellectualism in this country scares the hell out of me. How can people not see the value of basic research? How can they not see that profit oriented corporations have little or no incentive to engage in such research? Their responsibility is to their shareholders, which is as it should be, but given that fact, someone needs to do basic research if we’re to remain a scientific and economic leader in the world.
Certainly much research is crap. That’s true of every endeavor in this world. Most of everything is crap. That doesn’t mean that we stop doing things. Curtailing basic research because some of it is crap is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Walker represents the Koch brothers. I can’t help it if too many Wisconsin voters are gullible morons. But that’s a whole different discussion. Fortunately the federal government, despite the lunatics in Congress, has somehow remarkably managed to maintain semi-sane policies in important areas like science funding.
No, he is the government, which you said IS the people. Why are you contradicting yourself now?
Regards,
Shodan
Govt is made up of people who are pursuing their own self-interest. do you think our govt is looking out for your best interests?
again…I just don’t understand your confidence in govt or these agencies. What makes you think that these people are really looking out for the best interests of society and not trying to advance their own self-interest. When someone works for the govt, do they suddenly become immune to all corruption and greed?
on the contrary…I see private universities trying to increase their own profits by performing research that benefits society and thus attracts the best and brightest students. The profits of any private enterprise are just a measure of how well they have served society.
Let me try to explain. A university makes money by attracting customers. In order to attract customers, they have to offer a product that the customer wants. Hence, for a university to earn a lot of money, they have to have a better product than their competitors. In order to offer the best possible product, they have to have the best possible faculty doing research that gets them recognized as a leading intellectual powerhouse. Hence, universities have a huge incentive to allocate their $$ towards faculty and research. That makes perfect sense to me. What am I missing?
[QUOTE=Snowboarder Bo]
Are you sure you know what the word “lying” means? :dubious:
[/QUOTE]
According to my dictionary, it means “to express what is false” or “to utter untruth knowingly”. The Obama administration fit both definitions with its claims about the sequester.
My point was that the Democrats have made false claims about disasters hitting our educational system in the past, and thus it’s reasonable to be dubious whenever they make such claims. I note without surprise that nobody in this thread has disputed that point.
First of all, not all research deals with science and technology. At a big research university like Wisconsin, there are hundreds of professors doing research in fields such as history, anthropology, English literature, and so forth. I don’t know many history professors who have started technology spinoffs, nor many English lit profs who bring in millions in grant money.
As for the notion that most taxpayers don’t understand the research being conducted, that’s always been true and probably always will. Few in my grandfather’s generation understood Einstein’s discoveries, but they were willing to accept that Einstein and other researchers were smart people doing useful things. Nowadays when universities are in the news, it’s usually because someone like Saida Grundy has done something stupid, not because someone like Einstein has done something intelligent. After all, the biggest news stories from academia in the past academic year were the false rape accusations at UVA and Columbia (and now Harvard too). In all 3 cases, the faculty were suckered by the false accusations, and journalists from off campus had to find the truth instead. What taxpayer would want to pay for such a farce?
You can, of course, object that universities shouldn’t be judged by such things, but if you want to convince the taxpayers that supporting a research university is worthwhile, it’s up to you to make the case.
This is untrue. “Private institution” and “business” are not synonyms. Many private institutions are not businesses. It’s amazing that you didn’t know that.
Non-government institutions can do basic research. Ever heard of Bell Labs?
Paying for research faculty is a long-term investment. Money spent on research now only leads to institutional prestige years in the future. Which means that there’s a strong incentive for universities to “eat their seed corn” by skimping on it. If a university stops funding new scholarship and instead focuses on courting wealthy donors and slashing costs, it can coast for decades on its reputation before the damage to its “brand” to become apparent. And by that point it’s too late to reverse.