112 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
112 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
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February 25, 1990
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Risky Science by Tom Siegfried
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Dallas Morning News
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02/12/90
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Scientific research is often risky.
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Experiments with poison gas, for example, are not exactly free
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from danger. But there's another kind of risky science that is
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not at all dangerous in the ordinary sense. It's science fiction
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on the edge, on the frontier, where the most productive course
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isn't clear. The risk is in the odds against success. The danger
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is in the damage that unsuccessful high-risk science can do to a
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scientific career.
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On the other hand, the payoff from success in risky science can be
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great. But there can be no payoff unless somebody is willing to
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invest in such risky research to begin with.
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A growing number of scientists have begun to express concern that
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federal funding agencies are not interested in giving money to
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scientists who take risks. Funders prefer "safe" science,
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mainstream research that is all but guaranteeed to deliver some
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small increment to knowledge in a specific scientific field.
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Grant proposals that stray too far from well-trodden scientific
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paths seldom survive.
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It is the common practice in Western countries - the United States
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and Great Britain, for example - for scientists seeking funding to
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send a grant proposal to an appropriate funding agency. The
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agency seeks judgments on such proposals from scientists who are
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themselves experts in the field - peers of the people proposing
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the research.
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If the peers give a proposal a favorable review, it stands a good
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chance of getting funded.
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Of course, bad reviews can scuttle a project. That can be good -
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nobody wants to wast money on bad research. But sometimes, a good
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idea can get bad reviews - especially an idea on the frontiers of
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research where experts disagree on what the next best step should
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be.
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Ironically, in the Soviet Union - long known as a country
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afflicted by a lot of bad research - some innovative, risky
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projects are more readily funded. At certain research institutes,
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the institute itself gets research money and its own members
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decide what staff scientists are allowed to do.
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Some of the benefits of such an approach were described recently
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in the journal NATURE by earth scientists George Fisher, Priscilla
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Grew and Bruce Yardley, following a visit to the Institute of
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Experimental Mineralogy at Chernogolovka.
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"The Soviet and Western styles of supporting science are very
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different," they wrote. "In some respects, the Soviet system is
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effective and flexible. As the West rethinks its funding
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practices in this era of serious budget constraints, there are
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important lessons to be learnt from the Soviet Union."
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In particular, the funding of institutes instead of individuals
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has clear advantages.
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"The Soviet system tolerates some routine work in hopes of
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nurturing a new and unexpected discovery that will open up a
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totally new view of a subject," the scientists wrote. "In the
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West, on the other hand, we are so preoccupied with ensuring that
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no funds are wasted on unpredictable...research that we often fail
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to support truly innovative work."
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At the mineralogy institute, many innovative projects were under
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way.
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"We saw several innovative projects that would almost certainly
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fail to survive the peer-review process in the United States or
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Britain," the earth scientists reported. "During the 1980's,
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increased competition for a diminishing budget has meant that
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proposals need almost unanimous approval from reviewers. In
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the process of weeding out pedestrian projects, the system
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eliminates almost all of the really innovative projects, which are
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often too controversial to generate universal approval. Most
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proposals that attract funding are those which take just one small
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step down a path that is currently recognized by the community as
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'opportune', 'important' or 'timely.'"
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They might have added "cheap." Sometimes expense is a critical
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aspect of evaluating how risky research is. Computer scientist
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Alison Brown of Ohio State University, for example, points out
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that the high expense of supercomputer time squeezes out a lot of
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important "high-risk" research.
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"That's clearly a big impediment to advances in science, just
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plain raw power available cheap enough," she said in a recent
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interview. "The problem is, if you can't get cheap computing at
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the high end, you stop letting people do risky projects. And it's
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usually the risky projects that pay off. But when computing is
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really expensive, it gets rationed very carefully, and since it
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gets rationed by peer review....you end up funding mainstream
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stuff.
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"So the guys at the edges who are probably the guys that are going
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to win the Nobel Prizes and make the breakthroughs, they just
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don't get it. You can no longer afford adventure, and that's a
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real bad thing in science."
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Of course, not all risky science is good science, nor does all of
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it pay off in revolutionary discoveries. In fact, most risky
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science goes nowhere. But well traveled roads rarely lead
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anyplace new, either. |