Just not true. Real scientific leaps don't require government funding. The transistor was NOT government funded but developed at Bell labs. The training of scientists does not require government funding. Anyone with the smarts and the grades can get into graduate school and get a PhD as long as they are willing to do the work and pay the tuition.
Do you think Intel isn't doing any research? Government funding distorts the research marketplace just like it distorts everything else. Money is spent on useless, but communist "politically correct" things, like electric vehicles.
After the end of World War II, Kelly put together a team of scientists to develop a solid-state semiconductor switch to replace the problematic vacuum tube.The team would use some of the advances in semiconductor research during the war that had made radar possible.
Hrm. Odd, they specifically cite government funded vacuum-tube computing devices as the basis for their improvement, as well as preliminary semiconductor research. They basically improved upon a design already developed by (gasp) our government! But let's read on:
In the 1950s and 1960s, most U.S. companies chose to focus their attentions on the military market in producing transistor products.
It appears that the companies that developed the transistor needed government resources to maintain profitability. Interesting, no?
But, before you quote mine me AGAIN, I didn't say individual scientists didn't make leaps, I said the vast majority of leaps made REQUIRE government resources to develop AND realize. They are two very distinct and difficult things to achieve.The vast majority of private companies cannot maintain profitability while researching cutting edge techonolgies. The companies you site spend the majority of their budgets improving on established designs.
Anyone with the smarts and the grades can get into graduate school and get a PhD as long as they are willing to do the work and pay the tuition.
You're right, however, let's take a look at where the funding comes from for all those schools. Is it tuition? Don't be daft. Is it corporate funding? A little bit. The majority? You guessed it: government grants. Are you for pulling state/federal funding to universities?
Ironically, posted on a thread about CERN (birthplace of the World Wide Web, html, and http) on an internet forum. ;^)
I agree that a large chunk of government research dollars flows into pork projects and / or junk science. Where we apparantly disagree is in the funding for basic research.
As far as distorting the market place goes, here are some excerpts from the National Science and Engineering Indicators (2002):
Private industry, which provided 68 percent of total R&D funding in 2000, pays for most of the nation’s R&D. Private industry itself used nearly all (98 percent) of these funds in performing its own R&D; most (71 percent) of the funds were used to develop products and services rather than to conduct research.Looks like the marketplace is doing just fine. Private funding for R&D is booming.In 1980, Federal R&D support accounted for 47 percent of the nation’s total R&D effort. By 2000, Federal sources accounted for considerably less (26 percent) of the U.S. R&D total.
Industry performed the largest share of the nation’s R&D—75 percent. Universities and colleges performed 11 percent, and the Federal Government performed 7 percent. Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), which are administered by various industrial, academic, and nonprofit institutions, accounted for an additional 4 percent, and other nonprofit organizations accounted for 3 percent.