Comments on: Biogeochemistry Reading Group: Roger Pielke Jr. http://scienceblog.darrouzet-nardi.net/?p=28 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:16:03 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.1 By: Brian http://scienceblog.darrouzet-nardi.net/?p=28&cpage=1#comment-7710 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:16:03 +0000 http://anthony.darrouzet-nardi.net/scienceblog/?p=28#comment-7710 “I agree that the trend has been a good thing, though I don’t think that it would be good to move too far toward eliminating any line of inquiry that does not have immediate practical application. There is a certain randomness to research in which just the doing of it is important because it allows for serendipitous discoveries.”

I agree with you. But since we live in a capitalist nation, the days of private R&D are disappearing. Places like Bell Labs no longer exist and most mega corporations just buy ideas from Europe or Asia. Also, this is probably why most of our high tech science instruments are built from Germany or Japan… We (the U.S.) used to be the leaders in developing novel materials (e.g. Teflon) and equipment. Too bad we have to import a lot of that now just to do research (especially chemicals).

]]>