Hold on, are we mad at profiteers? Venture capitalists? What about the Skunkworks guys in the other thread. Private research universities, where's Masque? Isn't NASA turning to private contractors for a reason? I realize we'll end up with a lot of old rich guys with fake hair and erections in orbit, but don't we still end up ahead most of the time? PC's, smartphones, bigscreens, thickburgers, statins, don't make me go on...it seems like the collaboration between gubment and private research has been pretty productive so far.

I don't think anyone's indicated being mad at profiteers in this thread so far...

Zoltan's referring to the notion that profit-oriented institutions aren't willing to provide funding for basic research (research that does not quickly translate into profit/can not be commercialized). Basic research can prove incredibly important (and even revolutionary) in the long-term, but there's not enough incentives for people to engage in it (apart from government-funded incentives).

Well, what the hell was I ranting about then? I mean, yes, it's embarrassing we scrapped our huge particle accelerator and the Swiss get to take credit. But the Higgs sounded swissy enough already, so they deserved it. Anyway hunger is more of a political problem.

This is exactly the type of attitude that divides science/research from public affairs. Research may prove to be better equipped to effectively deal with these basic problems, yet non-profit organizations insist on funding immediate-outcomes, action-based initiatives: precisely due to attitudes like this.

But we can easily feed the world already. How do you force the warlords to stop stealing the shipments? How do you get poor, impoverished people to stop making so many more poor impoverished people? How do you get corrupt governments to actually help educate their citizens? I'm all for research into that. I actually am good friends with a guy who runs an advocacy group "think tank" that petitions the world bank to spend money more wisely.

These are good questions and these are important questions to ask. Research is being done (albeit not enough) toward providing answers to them. Research that is crucial, yet so often overlooked by the elitist club of hard-science individuals on one end and politicians and profiteers on the other.

Developing an environment from which the next Einstein can flourish is just as important as providing the current Einstein's with greater resources and opportunities to do great things.

Help generate debate in the proper forum is my two cents; no harm done except you leveled me intentionally or not into reading something I would have preferred not to read. Otherwise, if you really want to discuss something like this in SMP do it like we all do it and hijack a bad thread on page 2 and hope Zeno is in France, carry on, I'm off tilt.

As opposed to evidence that's objectively(?) interpreted?

Exploratory research aims to better understand some phenomenon and build theory around it (explore), while explanatory research aims to quantify and test a particular theory about some phenomenon (explain). Evidence collected in exploratory research does have room for interpretation but even then, the collection of that evidence is guided by some preliminary theory or conjecture, limiting interpretation. Explanatory research leaves very little (if any) room for interpretation because its collected and quantified for a very specific reason: to empirically test a particular theory.

So to the extent that evidence can be 'misinterpreted' I would say is very little, yet politicians typically use these meaningless terms like "subjectively-interpreted evidence" as if there is sooooo much room for interpretation when looking at research evidence.

However, if you take evidence outside of the context of the study for which it was collected, you can interpret it any way you want. If you're doing this however, then you may as well just make up something at the top of your head because outside of the context of the study, the evidence loses meaning.

It's so cute how you think evidence is evidence, and there's no room for conflicting opinions about what data are saying. Sheesh, that's the only way we got through journal club in grad school, by seeing who could come up with the most off-the-wall yet reasonable explanation different from the Nature-article-of-the-moment.

That sounds like a smart exercise. I wish our schools in Australia had exercises like that

I feel like you'd have to (to some degree) take the evidence outside of the context/theory that drove its collection in order to come to conclusions that are the complete opposite to that of the study.