Science, Engineering, Research... and Money

Many a times during the last year or so, I've felt the pace of science change. Researchers claim they don't have funding to actually pursue research. Instead they seem to be paid only to solve existing problems, on a budget. Non-science folks seemed pretty ambivalent, they think scientists get away with murder. Last week, a friend of mine actually put into words his absolute disgust for the billions spent on 'useless' programs like the space program and the 17-mile particle accelerator when children in Sudan are starving. He seemed to think engineering no longer was about helping societal needs but more about warship making and gimmick production (iPhone after iPhone), and somehow it was siphoning funds from more altruistic humanitarian programs.So, I have tried my hardest to discuss if not completely answer these questions:1. Should research in Science&Engineering (S&E) be governed by measures of utility? Is it a profession governed by an altruistic streak or is that just a side-effect?2. Should scientists be allowed to research whatever and let the tax payers pick up the tab?------First of all, lets clarify the role of engineering and the difference between want and need. Do we need another warship or do we just want one? Do we need to go to Mars or do we just want to? Do we need a motorcycle suit or just want one? The engineering community is based on catering to wants more than the needs. Mostly because we don’t really need anything from engineers, we never have. A new highway would make some of us get to work a little faster, but we don’t need it. A new plane would cut down the commute from JFK to Beijing by a couple of hours, but we don’t need it. The laptop, the Internet, the elevator, dams, roads, electricity, the cell-phone, even the 10-lb monstrous old phones with the rotating dial pad, we didn’t need them. In fact, engineering provides neither food nor shelter – nothing we actually need for survival. It just improves the quality of our lives. Well, some of our lives.Then there are different kinds of want. A car is a car is a car. But, BMW keeps rolling out better, faster, prettier and pricier versions of it. I like my cell-phone. It calls people when I press their numbers. It could also put a sizable dent if thrown at someone. It doesn’t send emails, access the web, play my favorite tunes or teach me calculus. The iPhone probably does all those things and looks pretty doing it. Apple will keep rolling them out till people stop wanting iNething. Is it the engineers’ fault for building the iStuff? Most engineers build commodities because we think it’s so friking Cool and because we can! We love the blue LED lights, and the reduced runtimes and the fast boots. Sometimes other people pay us to make more cool stuff that they want but can’t make. There is no altruistic motive to the new iPhone or iTouch or the MacBook. It was built because someone thought it was cool and someone else was willing to pay for it. Oh and it does do all this awesome stuff, and makes itself absolutely and annoyingly indispensable. I’m sure the person who makes less than $1/ day doesn’t need one, but are you sure given the chance he/she wouldn’t want one?The Space Program is another want. So is the particle accelerator. So is another electron microscope. Only difference is that they are engineering commodities being used in research as enablers for better science. I know most of us wouldn’t care if the electron was composed of small blue pixies, or if the earth was really the center of the universe. It doesn’t help the people living under the poverty lines right now. But science never has been about utility and it shouldn’t be. Innovations don’t happen because a lot of smart people sat down and decided today is the day to solve the world’s food problem. They happen when some poor bloke studying fruit-flies discovers a gene, some astro-biologist comes up with a way to make acid-free clouds and some engineer puts them together to make healthy crops not destroyed by acid rain. The astro-biology division at NASA (considered the most useless of all its space-endeavors) went to parts of Africa to find micro-organisms surviving in extreme weather and found a way to make water from hot springs full of sulphur, drinkable. If NASA didn’t have the space-program funding these scientists, some people in the middle of nowhere would be walking tens of miles for drinking water. Of course, providing safe drinking water wasn’t NASA’s intention. But do you think anyone else would have found a way to use the hot water springs? Innovation and science don’t happen when we want them to.Did you know that the government has cut down on research funding since the 80s? There is no Bell Labs anymore and most of the innovative research is happening out of the United States. This is why outsourcing is such a huge issue. US had a competitive edge because when Japan started using the same technology, US already had the next big thing. Today the only really innovative research is happening in government labs sponsored by things like the space-program. Curbing science by measures of immediate utility is a disastrous idea because science discovers the unexpected and engineering harnesses it. How can you predict the unexpected much less discuss the utility of it?! If a scientist wants a 17-mile new particle accelerator to discover those blue pixies inside electrons, then I think some engineer should build him one rather than use the money to build more warships and F-117s. Why? Because maybe one of those blue pixies could save the ozone from depleting.I know the billions of dollars being thrown around sound like a farce when half the world is starving. But that money will never be given to aid. So the choice really comes down to do we use the money towards new science or do we use it towards ‘engineering’ better warships. The most profitable businesses grow because they invest in themselves rather than spend the profits elsewhere. If the national economy is a business, then research would be places to invest.