alex.m.thompson
  • Home
  • Biography
  • Publications
  • Photos
  • Research
  • Collaborators
  • Blog

my thoughts on science

Trouble down under

12/17/2013

0 Comments

 
Recently Australia has seemed like an ideal destination for scientists. It's economy remained strong whilst those in North American and Europe slowed, stagnated or declined, and it seemed willing to fund research and support science. Australia also genuinely seemed to value education and wanted to make its universities some of the best in the world. However, since the election of their new government things have begun to change. It was telling that one of Tony Abbot's first acts was to get rid of the Science Minister. I just wanted to draw attention to some of the comments that have been made in the Australian parliament regarding changes to their Australian Research Council Bill (link pasted below).
The comments by Craig Kelly highlight how badly informed and myopic some politicians are. Firstly, he repeated refers to making Australia more competitive. What does this mean? It is an ill-defined concept. Funding research will attract the best researchers to your universities, which in turn will attract the best students and companies, tv documentary crews... the list goes on from the knock-on effects of funding research. If he thinks that only funding research into biomedical fields will work then he is putting all of his eggs in one basket. There is no guarantee that funding medical research will create new drugs that will cure cancer or any such 'important' disease. Granted, there is never a guarantee that any research will provide the expected or anticipated results, but by funding research in the pursuit of knowledge so many world changing discoveries have been made. For example, one of the guys who invented the laser at Bell Laboratories came home from work and told his wife that what he had invented had no useful purpose, but it has changed the world (there are a plethora of other examples).
He also lists multiple studies that he deems pointless. But many of these have immediate application to the modern world and the problems we are currently facing. This highlights the fact that more trained scientists need to become involved in politics. We all love our ivory towers, but when such poorly informed people are holding the purse strings and influencing policy our ability to build our beloved ivory towers diminishes. More scientist need to become involved in policy and help fund research that may not provide direct benefits now but may do in the future. 

Link to comments by Craig Kelly 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I am a behavioural ecologist, my main interests revolve around familial conflicts and their resolutions. However, my scientific interests are fairly broad.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012

    Categories

    All
    90
    99 Percent Invisible
    99pi
    Africa
    Alien Species
    Allee Effect
    Altruism
    Amazon
    Andreas Wagner
    Anthropocene
    Apostle Bird
    Arabian Babbler
    Attenborough
    Babbler
    Badger Cull
    Badgers
    Banded Mongoose
    BBC
    Bee
    Big Bang Fair
    Bighorn Sheep
    Biodiversity
    Biological Control
    Biology
    Biology Letters
    Bird For Britain
    Birds
    Birthday
    Black Sparrowhawk
    Blogs
    Book
    Book Review
    Breeding
    Brood Parasitism
    Brown Tree Snake
    Burying Beetles
    Butterflies
    Butyric Acid
    Camel
    Cane Toad
    Chemicals
    Chernobyl
    Chimp
    Chronotype
    CITES
    Climate Change
    Cod
    Collaborations
    Color
    Colour
    Colour Vision
    Common Misunderstandings
    Communication
    Competition
    Conference
    Conflict
    Conservation
    Conservatism
    Conservative
    Cool Papers
    Cool Research
    Cooperation
    Crime
    Crows
    Cuckoo
    Dad Media
    Dailymail
    Dalai Lama
    Darting
    Darwin
    Darwin's Finches
    Deception
    Deception Africa
    Decision Making
    Deer
    DES
    Dieter Lukas
    Disney
    Diving
    Documentary
    Dominance
    Drongo
    Eavesdropping
    Economics
    Education
    Elephants
    Epigenetics
    EU
    Evil
    Evolution
    Evolutionary Approach
    Extracurricular
    Fear
    Fennec Fox
    Filming
    Fish
    Fittness
    Fitz
    Football
    Foraging
    Fork Tailed Drongo
    Fork-tailed Drongo
    Free Radicals
    Future
    Gastranaut
    Good Genes
    Ground Squirrel
    Group Living
    Grouse
    Guardian
    Hands
    Hedgehog
    Hero
    Home Advantage
    Honeyguide
    Hornbill
    Hot Birds
    Human
    Human Impact
    Human-wildlife Conflict
    Hummingbirds
    Inbreeding
    Intelligent Bird
    Interesting Research
    Intrasexual
    Invasive Species
    Isbe 2014
    Ivory
    Kalahari
    Kardashian
    Kenya
    Kids
    K-index
    Koala
    Language
    Larks
    Learning
    Long-term
    Male-male Competition
    Male Tenure
    Mantis
    Mating
    Meerkat
    Meta-analysis
    Mice
    Misconceptions
    Miya Warrington
    Mongoose
    Moths
    Mysogyny
    Natural Selection
    Nepotism
    Nestling Growth
    New Papers
    New Research
    Niche
    NO2
    Nuclear
    Old Boys Club
    Olfaction
    Ornithology
    Overfishing
    Owls
    Oxidative Stress
    Parental Care
    Peer Review
    Percy FitzPatrick Institute
    Pest Control
    Pesticides
    Phd
    Phd Comics
    Phenotypic Plasticity
    Pheromones
    Pied Babbler
    Pied Babblers
    Pied Crows
    PLoS One
    Poaching
    Podcasts
    Politcians
    Political Views
    Polymorphism
    Poor Reporting
    Population Change
    Population Decline
    Population Dynamics
    Precautionary Principle
    Public Understanding
    Raccoon
    Radiolab
    Raihani
    Random
    Raptors
    Reciprocity
    Red Deer
    Referendum
    Regulation
    Research
    Resource Dispersion Hypothesis
    Robin
    Rum
    Running
    Schools
    Science
    Science Education
    Science In The News
    Scientific Method
    Scimitarbill
    Scotland
    Seagull
    Sexism
    Sexual Conflict
    Sexual Selection
    Shrikes
    Signalling
    Singing
    Smell
    Sociality
    South Africa
    Speach
    Spring
    Stealing
    STEM
    STEMtech
    Stuff You Missed In History Class
    Stuff You Should Know
    Suppression
    Syntax
    SYSK
    Tamarisk
    TBT
    Teaching
    Temperature
    Theft
    Theory Of Mind
    The Telegraph
    The Times
    Tigers
    Tim Peake
    Top 10
    Tories
    Trees
    Uganda
    UK
    Urban
    Urban Animals
    Urbanisation
    Weaver
    Wheel
    Wild
    Winning
    Wood Wide Web
    World Cup
    World's Sneakiest Animals
    Wrinkle
    Youtube Channels
    Zebra Mussel

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.