This topic is inspired by a press release Thursday from a student body in Quebec, Canada. Students have been on strike in Quebec for about 10 weeks now, protesting proposed tuition hikes. Not that this is the topic of the thread, but there are lots of weird aspects of this protest that I'd love to talk about if anyone is interested in La Belle Provance.
CLASSE is an organization that represents the largest portion of the striking students. They also represent the most radical, listing among their goals free public university education. Their most recent list of demands included this:
As well as demands for freezes on wages and tuition.
This strikes me as an obvious paradox. Reducing the research done at the university, aside from being problematic for research in Canada as a whole, damages the productivity and reputation of the university. Scientists who are not practicing science are essentially wasted money, and without the ability to offer competitive wages, the best and the brightest are going to drain very quickly into other locations. They are devaluing the very thing they think is so valuable that everyone deserves it.
There is some logic to this, though. Education does improve one's quality of life and society in general. Though the university may not be able to bring in the best or may have a neutered science department, arts enhance culture, and any education is preferable to none. I'm sure there is someone who can make this argument better than me...
Anyways, the question is, which motivation here is the right one? When determining education policy, what is more important, access to the institution for even the least well-off in society, or distinguished facilities that provide the highest possible level of education and scientific endeavor? Is this an issue where there is a meaningful "middle ground"?
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Do you think that research and education have to be linked?
I think that is a paradigm that was popularized by Wilhelm von Humboldt in his early 19th century education reforms. Personally I am unsure whether this is a necessary linking for the future of education, so I wonder what you think.
As I understand it, Grad Students are the backbone of modern science. Without them it would all grind to a halt. It would take a long time and serious effort to get out of that.
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Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
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the site is largely conservative, so mind the bias.
I suppose in theory, no, but they are. And in the current political climate, I can't see the government stepping up to fund basic research were it not done in the same action as funding their voters' children's education. For instance, the Federal Conservative party here just destroyed the National Research Council, shutting down huge MRI and other research facilities in Winnipeg, Edmonton and majorly cutting the one in Halifax. The facilities were less than 10 years old (I believe...) and had already produced top quality research ranging from cutting edge cancer treatments that have already saved lives to neuroscience that shows emotional processing in the spinal cord (MRI imaging of the spine is incredibly difficult, speaking to the quality of the technicians there). In a province like Manitoba, where Winnipeg is, there are literally no MRI machines available for research purposes now. The damage done to medical and biological research in Canada is almost certainly irreparable and will cost far more to restore than it ever saved from cuts. Worst, the only justification is in the name of "cuts".
Sure, the government could directly fund scientists rather than institutions, but I really don't trust they would do a better job of it, if they even took it on, and political "truths" are too volatile. What is considered necessary today is gone tomorrow.
To me, it would be about ensuring the quality of science. I'm not suggesting attaching it to educational institutions is the best we could ever think of, but I'm not sure if there is a realistic alternative.
Science needs to get its money from somewhere, and it needs that money to be unattached to any strings that aren't "do good science". Government probably can't, or would be incapable in the long term, of funding 100% of research directly. Having an institution that raises some of its own funds and is motivated by profit and prestige to have the best scientists acts as a decent intermediate that can sort of account for a lot of the setbacks to exclusive state funding.
So, an institution of education, or at least, an institution that is dedicated to the pursuit of learning or truth probably works best for this. You could argue that private donations or the private sector could fund research more directly, but in both of those cases, far more bias is introduced than is with an institution.
For instance, depending on private donation makes research subject to the whim of what wealthy individuals think should be researched. In this case, you may end up having the best biological minds of the day trying to cure a 1/10000000 genetic disease because the family can afford to pay for them. Sure, I can see this working, but not as well as institutions where essentially scientists get to decide what is important science to investigate. Additionally, all the human flaws like superstition, etc, are now a fundamental part of research, this type of funding would almost legitimize the "Discover Institute" or mega-church funded science.
And biases aside, private investment is dominated by applied science versus basic research. Both are important, but the former requires the latter, and it is far less likely that a company will invest in it, given there is no way to know what, if any, marketable discoveries may be developed from the basic research.
Like, I'm sure we could think of something else, or some mutation of the stuff I listed, I suppose I just don't see what the inherent problem might be, I guess, aside from the whole topic of this thread, lol!
true, but I imagine so long as there was some institution that did science, the equivalent of a "grad student" could be adopted in an apprenticeship kind of role. There would probably be less of the "just getting a grad degree because I don't know what to do" people.
Last edited by tsilamini on May 5th, 2012 at 05:46 PM
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