Re: global warming

On Oct 17, 11:07 pm, ChrisQ <m...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:

It all depends what you mean by "at tax-payer expense". I was
supported through my Ph.D. by an Australian government funded research
grant, which paid me roughly half what I would have been paid if I'd
had a proper job in industry. According to some economist I read at
that time, this meant that I paid half the cost of my Ph.D. by working
for half what I was worth, and I had a very clear title to the data
that I'd accumulated.

I don't know you, as someone who must at least have part of a clue,
could be so out of touch with reality. The *market* decides what you are
worth, not you and that's based not so much on the paper, which just
says you have some ability to learn and for critical analysis, but more
experience and proven track record.

You can't have had much contact with personnel departments. What I was
worth when i was a Ph.D. student was what I could have got if I taken
a job in industry, and that was pretty predictable at the that time. I
did rather better than average when I finally did get work in
industry, but that's irrelevant.

If that were the case, we would all
be very rich and business would be bankrupt.

Why would you think that?

There are a lot of highly
qualified academics etc who work for very low salaries just to be able
to do work they love or are just interested in, yet freely share their
work with others. Such people are everywhere, believe it or not. They
just don't make a big noise about it.

I've got a certain amount of insight into that business. Academics do
claim that they are paid less than they could get in industry - mostly
because they think they would have the managing directors job. They do
publish their data enthusiastically, but they don't freely share their
raw data with everybody - if it is shared it is in the context of some
kind of collaboration that will - if successful lead to a joint paper.

The government support was essentially an investment - someone with a
Ph.D. earns more than someone with B.Sc. and the difference rises as
they get older, and the government expected to recoup their investment
because I should have ended up paying them a lot more income tax after
completing the degree than I would have done if I stopped at my first
degree. They weren't buying the data I collected, merely the extra
income I was expected to earn by virtue of collecting the data.

I'm having great difficulty understanding the logic behind that. If the
data is from real science and there is no fiddling with the results,
what have you to fear from publication ?.

A rival exploiting it to get a publication that I could have had if
I'd been faster off the mark.

It may irritate you to have it
criticised, but that's life and if you are sure of your facts, request
proof or tell them stfu. Peer group review is encouraged in most
enlightened organisations, precisely because it's more likely to find
the gotchas not envisaged in the original work and produces a better
final result.

Absoultely. McIntyre wasn't and isn't a member of the peer group, and
nobody thinks that his intervention did anything to help Mannor the
other people working in that area.

As for investment, that is not primarily based on future possible tax
revenue, but the contribution that individual may make later to the sum
of knowledge for the common good. If research is funded from the public
purse, the results of that research belong to those that funded it,
though you may get some patent fame if you are lucky...

The government doesn't say a word about the direction of the research,
or how it is carried out. Nothing I've ever seen suggests that they
ever thought that they had a right to it before Exxon-Mobil's
lobbyists stirred up Amercan politicians to stick their oar in.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Your monthly weather report
    ... is it paid for twice, but more than twice because the failed projects ... Most research publication is created in electronic format to begin with. ... if the US government did maintain a server with all the results ...
    (soc.culture.scottish)
  • Re: yeah Social Security is a great deal
    ... legally owe you not one red cent of the amount you paid in. ... spent by the rest of the government. ... If you put $10 into a savings account, ... same money and stuffing it under a mattress for 40 years. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: yeah Social Security is a great deal
    ... legally owe you not one red cent of the amount you paid in. ... to pay off its $10 trillion debt (and that's real debt, ... spent by the rest of the government. ... If it makes you feel better, it's true that SS is better than taking the same money and stuffing it under a mattress for 40 years. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Re: yeah Social Security is a great deal
    ... legally owe you not one red cent of the amount you paid in. ... spent by the rest of the government. ... it's sooooo much more tempting to give that money over to Wall Street ... Congress + the President could decide ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
  • Time to purge the scum from DC
    ... It's time for seniors to rise up. ... I paid cash for my social security insurance and never ... Foreign Countries! ... the government is running out of money. ...
    (rec.boats)