This is why Mary Lasker, the philanthropist who created the modern cancer research funding environment, insisted that a layman be on every funding committee. Laymen don't geek out over research; they just want cures.
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Science philanthropy isn't always for low-quality projects; in fact, a lot of the work in improving scientific reproducibility is funded privately by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.
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But it's not just that some science philanthropists do their homework impressively well. What I actually believe is something even stronger: that the stereotypical "sugar daddy" who throws money around relatively carelessly is *good* for science at current margins.
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Whatever the merits of the NIH/NSF system, the fact remains that even the widely-acknowledged best scientists, people like Ed Boyden, struggle to get funding. There's scarcity at the top.https://guzey.com/how-life-sciences-actually-work/ …
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Ambitious people are going to look at that and go "nah. Clearly the world doesn't respect scientists enough to fully fund even the best ones. I can make a bigger impact on the world in industry."
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One way of looking at it: Epstein's reach could be so broad because he had so little competition. I bet a lot of people would have turned his money down if a non-rapist philanthropist was *also* beating down their doors.
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Suppose you're a famous scientist. Not just a highly-esteemed one, but somebody who's gotten some media attention. You're going to events like TED. You move in circles with people famous in the arts and media, with wealthy people. But you're still scrambling for grants.
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Your "peers" who've reached a similar level of success in tech or art or social-entrepreneurship can get money *casually*, through social connections. You have all those same social connections. You're not just smart, you're charming! But you're still not funded.
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This is a real situation that happens a lot. Obviously not all good work is glamorous, as Sarah Taber points out. But even work that's both glamorous *and* good doesn't get serious funding.
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Irene Pepperberg's research on animal cognition was funded by donations from bird fanciers. She was a media sensation; but she was broke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Pepperberg … https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?content=reviews&isbn=9780674008069 …
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As long as that's true, we should expect to get a fair amount of good science per dollar if we had an influx of "dumb money" donors who just donated to scientists at top institutions whose research was in the news and sounded cool.
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Obviously, it's possible for there to be *enough* "dumb money" in science that it does more harm than good by distorting the field. I think we are not there yet.
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