The one I know most about is Newton, and the example seems clearly misleading here. When he went to the mint he was already well-established and had done much of his important scientific work.
Previous to the mint post, Newton was lucasian professor at Cambridge and received patronage from the royal society, of which he later became president. The Royal Society was founded with the blessing of (and supported financially by) the king, with the stated purpose of “advancing knowledge.”
The French Royal Academy, instead of being simply patronized by the government was created entirely as an organ of government.
Leibniz, while a court “ornament” was supported so that he could do his research, and his patrons supported other scientists at court for the same purpose. Galileo received generous patronage from the Medicis.
Sure, the political purpose probably was more about prestige then research, but ’d argue that funding basic research is always about prestige (in the Hanson sense), even in the post-ww2 democracies. The stated purpose, however, was basic research and it clearly began a tradition that continues to this day of government patronized basic science research.
Can we agree that my statement that government traditionally funds basic research is accurate?
I don’t think this is strong evidence for “insufficient funding.
What would you consider evidence of insufficient funding? My point stands- funding for biomedical is large and growing, funding for basic biology is smaller and flat or shrinking. This leads to huge career differences between medical and biological researchers (the between field differences can’t be explained by the structure of the organization that funds both fields). The NIH’s budget doubling in the 90s went almost entirely towards applied medical research.
The other big push in that direction comes from universities, who relatively recently noticed that licensing patents to industry is big business.
Previous to the mint post, Newton was lucasian professor at Cambridge and received patronage from the royal society, of which he later became president. The Royal Society was founded with the blessing of (and supported financially by) the king, with the stated purpose of “advancing knowledge.”
The French Royal Academy, instead of being simply patronized by the government was created entirely as an organ of government.
Leibniz, while a court “ornament” was supported so that he could do his research, and his patrons supported other scientists at court for the same purpose. Galileo received generous patronage from the Medicis.
Sure, the political purpose probably was more about prestige then research, but ’d argue that funding basic research is always about prestige (in the Hanson sense), even in the post-ww2 democracies. The stated purpose, however, was basic research and it clearly began a tradition that continues to this day of government patronized basic science research.
Can we agree that my statement that government traditionally funds basic research is accurate?
What would you consider evidence of insufficient funding? My point stands- funding for biomedical is large and growing, funding for basic biology is smaller and flat or shrinking. This leads to huge career differences between medical and biological researchers (the between field differences can’t be explained by the structure of the organization that funds both fields). The NIH’s budget doubling in the 90s went almost entirely towards applied medical research.
The other big push in that direction comes from universities, who relatively recently noticed that licensing patents to industry is big business.