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Universities turn out graduates who can work in the industry doing research without a totally new education. This is because of grants to University Scientists which enables graduate students to perform experiments researching cancer, signal transduction, cardiovascular disease, gene function, synthetic chemistry, mass spectrometry etc, etc. This all involves expensive equipment and reagents. Not all of it involves being better able to kill people, but enables us to save lives.

Wilson was perhaps a little sensitive to the idea that all a particle accelerator was going to do was enable us to make bigger bombs because he worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the Atomic bomb.

At some point there is pride to be taken in pure research, pride in discovery, national pride that it takes place in the U.S.A. more than in any other nation. I have pride that I am doing my part to discern a small part of this great and glorious creation. I am proud to be looking for small molecule therapeutics to heal the sick. But not all research needs to be packed into pills or bombs to be of value. Where will the next generation of Scientists be trained? Alumni seem willing to spend millions on new football stadiums, but springing a few thousand for a DNA sequencer and some DNA purification kits seems to be beyond their realm of interest. A few elite Universities could work on endowments but they would have to curtail the scope of their research efforts without funding from the Fed.

I am sure India and China are willing to train the next generation of Scientists and Engineers for us. I already enjoy working with many people from other nations who have come to the U.S.A. to work, but I would like to continue seeing American graduates of American Universities.