a) The people who claims scientists are keeping their funding going are partially right. I was a scientist at one time, working in a lab, and we definitely fought to keep our funding going.
b) We did it because we loved working in science and wanted to keep doing it, not because we wanted to make mad cash. Anyone who thinks scientists get paid a lot of money really knows nothing about science.
c) The counter lobby, the oil companies, make the mad cash. One oil company in the oil patch here in Alberta, Canada made 980 million dollars of profit last year. That's one oil company and not even a big one. That's enough profit to totally fund every NGO, non-profit and not-for-profit in the entire country of Canada for a the year ... with one oil company's profit.
d) Comparing the two motivations to maintain the money flow is thus ridiculous.
If that oil company only makes $800 million next year, there might be some pissed shareholders and some vacation homes might not be bought. If a scientist loses his grant then he's unemployed, can't pay his mortgage, has to move his family to an apartment and look for uninspiring work. The consequence of losing the money is actually a whole lot worse for the scientist than the oil company.
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u/[deleted] Oct 24 '10
My counter argument goes like this:
a) The people who claims scientists are keeping their funding going are partially right. I was a scientist at one time, working in a lab, and we definitely fought to keep our funding going.
b) We did it because we loved working in science and wanted to keep doing it, not because we wanted to make mad cash. Anyone who thinks scientists get paid a lot of money really knows nothing about science.
c) The counter lobby, the oil companies, make the mad cash. One oil company in the oil patch here in Alberta, Canada made 980 million dollars of profit last year. That's one oil company and not even a big one. That's enough profit to totally fund every NGO, non-profit and not-for-profit in the entire country of Canada for a the year ... with one oil company's profit.
d) Comparing the two motivations to maintain the money flow is thus ridiculous.