The type of committee I am talking about would have on white coats - and maybe include a few women
This isn’t
exactly a “frivolity”, but then, again, it has very little to do with OVCA
directly – so I stick it here.
I have been
writing about things I know little or nothing about for a half-dozen years or
so. All that time I have nurtured a suspicion
that “we” (society) are making some fundamental mistakes in how we allocate
research funds. In particular, I have
continually felt (and expressed, if poorly) the notion that, whereas big
research programs are best for testing new hypotheses and working out their
details, the actual innovative hypothesis itself is more likely to come from a small (<4. say) group – or a single scientist working, and thinking, alone. Thus, it is not surprising to
find that a scientific report on the efficacy of drug XYZ has upwards of
several dozen “authors” – but it was Einstein who proposed the existence
of gravitational waves.
Consequently
I wish that research funds could be distributed somewhat differently. At present, for the most part, the money is
divvied up by substantially large, bureaucratic committees – and, it seems to
me that large bureaucratic committees can be expected to give birth to more of the
same . I wish there were a way to divert
more funding to isolated investigators with “whacky” new ideas – and do so
effectively.
I’m not sure
how that would work.
But, anyway,
read this persuasive article from the NYTimes.
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