Research in The National Interest, Indeed

Research in The National Interest, Indeed

Last week, Rep Lamar Smith (R-Texas) posted a piece on the Congress Blog entitled "Research in the National Interest".  This sounds like a very reasonable read, calling for support of innovation and science.  Straight talk, if you will.  Unfortunately, it is a re-run of a movie we in the business have seen before.

Every so often, a politician or a pundit will frenzy the masses by generating a list of Federally-funded research projects that they deem unworthy of support, judging by the title.  The make it sound as those these were earmarked funds gifted to professors seeking to feed their own intellectual superiority complex.  the truth, as it tends to be, is quite different.  Smith went after some National Science Foundation (NSF) projects, and neglected to discuss how NSF funding decisions are made.  Proposals are reviewed anonymously by three experts in the given field, and those reviews are then discussed among a panel of twelve experts.  NSF funding is very, very difficult to obtain.  The success rate for having a project funding is extremely low.  In other words, the proposals for the projects that Smith finds a "waste of taxpayer money" likely presented extremely persuasive arguments to those best in position to judge that they were important.  Social science isn't my area, but I'm comfortable trusting that.  In addition, one aspect of Federal science grants is that they are unambiguous job creators.  Having prepared several Federal agency budgets, most of the costs go to salary support for technical staff and student workers.  Finally, Smith argues that money should be spent on "interdisciplinary research to understand how the brain works could lead to cures in dementia, Parkinson’s disease as well has how to treat traumatic injury and combat wounds".  Representative Smith, I believe you are confusing the mission of NSF with that of NIH.  NSF does not fund clinical research.  I understand your confusion; it's not as though you Chair on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technolo...oh wait.  This is awkward.

Smith includes a cutting remark about public dollars "being used to provide free foreign vacations to college professors".  I won't bother engaging on the absurdity of that point, having spent my own "free foreign vacations" (apparently like a total sucker) working.  I'll provide my own rhetorical question to the Congressman himself: Given your below-the-median attendance for roll-call votes and relocation of your family, why should the taxpayers of Texas be providing you with a free vacation destination in Washington D.C.?