"In a public university, the only people receiving salaries as part of direct costs are those of us on 9 month contracts, where we can draw up to 3 months summer salary from grants. People on 12 month contracts (e.g. ag. schools) don't get any salary from the feds.
This amounts to another sub-fraction of the 10%. So much for your 'Scientists are overwhelmingly paid by government grants, not student tuition money.'.
Telling untruths out of negligence or wanton disregard for the truth is lying."
I was going to wade in on this one, but since you were there, I decided to let you answer. You did a great job, but........
Government is much more pervasive than direct salaries. A lot of that overhead is recycled down to Departments in the form of equipment and small grants to support this and that. But the worst part, is the peer review of grants that forces scientists into research areas that are "approved" by the NSF, NIH, DOE, EPA, etc. That effect is quite serious, IMHO. Government Scientist is an oxymoron, and especially in the Life Sciences, government scientists are typically an inferior lot. So we have this inferior lot leading around the best brains in the business. It's not awful, but our progress could have been much greater if they would get out of the way.
I am a microbiologist and have been in the middle of this - how do you fit?
Disagree. Drug companies do a lot of biological research. I know good scientists both there and in NIH labs. They both have to deal with bureaucratic nonsense, in different ways.