E-Letter responses to:

p-forum: Newt Gingrich SCIENCE PRIORITIES: An Opportunities-Based Science Budget Science 2000; 290: 1303 [Summary] [Full text]

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Published E-Letter responses:

You Get What You Pay For...

Dr Trevor Fenning   (1 December 2000)

You Get What You Pay For... 1 December 2000
Dr Trevor Fenning, Scientist Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology Respond to this E-Letter: Re: You Get What You Pay For...	Newt Gingrich suggests a science-funding policy for the United States that sounds much like the "customer - contractor" principle that dominates science funding in the United Kingdom, which has had predictable results, as per the bovine spongiform encephalapathy fiasco, for instance. If governments pay only for the research they want, they only get only the answers they have asked for---which is not what science is about. Sophistocated, technology-dependent modern societies need the best science and advice to sustain themselves, and Gingrich's suggestions will not deliver it.