Comment by pfdietz
2 days ago
I thought the results of science are free for everyone to see. That's how science works.
So isn't it optimal to depend on science someone else does? They spend the money, but you both reap whatever knowledge is obtained.
Nothing is free even scientific results. Patents, closed journals, industrial secrets.
It doesn’t always work like that in practice. I can’t read a bunch of papers on fluid dynamics and composite materials and then build a modern airliner wing. If you fund the science, you get the experts.
But often it is like that. I point to the US before WW2, and China more recently. Scientific spending seems a consequence of economic dominance, not a cause. It's a kind of potlatch, a demonstration that the society has the money to burn for a status activity.
Science has more value than just economic value. But I think it’s rather obvious that a lot of large European and American industries exist largely as a result of scientific and military spending. Boeing and Airbus are the examples that spring to mind. China is still quite a long way from competing with either, and it’s not for want of smart people or general manufacturing expertise.
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That’s what I thought. It’s nonsensical.
No, “science” often produces results favourable to those who fund it.
So, the results aren't published? How is that consistent with how science is supposed to be done?
Or do you mean there are spinoffs? But then how is science supposed to be superior at producing these compared to directed development of actually useful things?
Depends. The control is on what research is done in the first place. For example, effectiveness of ivermectin was not even studied during Covid. New treatments that can be patented however was.