Sunday, June 07, 2009
Peter Mandelson to run British Science - apparently
A lot of people do not know this, yet. And it is likely to be true, at least whilst we have Gordon Brown.
Brief details: "DIUS, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills currently responsible for the UK science funding councils, is apparently being disbanded two years after its creation by Gordon Brown. As a result, responsibility for science will be propelled back across the alphabet soup of new government departments to the Dept. of Business, Enterprise, Regulation and something else beginning with R (BERR), formerly known as the Department of Trade and Industry, and now renamed again to become the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills. This will be run by Peter Mandelson, when he's not busy being Gordon Brown's right-hand man (which he currently seems to be). The DTI originally dumped Science on the newly-formed DIUS back in 2007".
The authors of that blog state "If the government is encouraging industry to come in and pour more money into research, without detracting from scientists' ability to engage in the sort of blue sky endeavours that are essential for scientific progress, then I'm all for it providing proper checks and balances are in place. If, instead, they plan to "make science pay for itself", then we have a very serious problem ahead. We need to get clarification on this. Science was the forgotten issue in the European elections, but we need to press for answers now that the countdown to a general election has pretty much begun."
IMO: "Making science pay for itself" is a bad and disturbing trend throughout the world. I see that as being far worse in direct cash terms than the bad international mistakes made by the West on banking, almost as bad as those made by "Fred the Shred" and his purchase of 10% of the Bank of China, or the RBS purchase of Barings. With such methods as "Making science pay for itself" we would have no nuclear power or computers, hardly a way of benefiting the world. "Making science pay for itself" is the approach of the neoLuddites which will lead to disaster and the end of the world. Hopefully far sighted businessmen like Alan Sugar, who must have done well from the Arnold (or Amstrad) and from Viglen, will allow plenty of money for so-called blue sky research. Had it not been for blue sky research, Amstrad or Viglen would not have been possible, as there would have been no computers. I worked with a colleague of the late Alan Turing, and have also used an ILLIAC I clone (ILLIAC I was Chicago's very first computer) so I know "blue sky makes money", very big money indeed if you are smart. Margaret Mountford is apparently actually going back to rather abstruse academic work, which though apparently not immediately directed toward science is presumably of real scholastic merit. So Labor have the ability to know, and they have the need to know.
Brief details: "DIUS, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills currently responsible for the UK science funding councils, is apparently being disbanded two years after its creation by Gordon Brown. As a result, responsibility for science will be propelled back across the alphabet soup of new government departments to the Dept. of Business, Enterprise, Regulation and something else beginning with R (BERR), formerly known as the Department of Trade and Industry, and now renamed again to become the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills. This will be run by Peter Mandelson, when he's not busy being Gordon Brown's right-hand man (which he currently seems to be). The DTI originally dumped Science on the newly-formed DIUS back in 2007".
The authors of that blog state "If the government is encouraging industry to come in and pour more money into research, without detracting from scientists' ability to engage in the sort of blue sky endeavours that are essential for scientific progress, then I'm all for it providing proper checks and balances are in place. If, instead, they plan to "make science pay for itself", then we have a very serious problem ahead. We need to get clarification on this. Science was the forgotten issue in the European elections, but we need to press for answers now that the countdown to a general election has pretty much begun."
IMO: "Making science pay for itself" is a bad and disturbing trend throughout the world. I see that as being far worse in direct cash terms than the bad international mistakes made by the West on banking, almost as bad as those made by "Fred the Shred" and his purchase of 10% of the Bank of China, or the RBS purchase of Barings. With such methods as "Making science pay for itself" we would have no nuclear power or computers, hardly a way of benefiting the world. "Making science pay for itself" is the approach of the neoLuddites which will lead to disaster and the end of the world. Hopefully far sighted businessmen like Alan Sugar, who must have done well from the Arnold (or Amstrad) and from Viglen, will allow plenty of money for so-called blue sky research. Had it not been for blue sky research, Amstrad or Viglen would not have been possible, as there would have been no computers. I worked with a colleague of the late Alan Turing, and have also used an ILLIAC I clone (ILLIAC I was Chicago's very first computer) so I know "blue sky makes money", very big money indeed if you are smart. Margaret Mountford is apparently actually going back to rather abstruse academic work, which though apparently not immediately directed toward science is presumably of real scholastic merit. So Labor have the ability to know, and they have the need to know.
# posted by uv : 3:01 AM
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