The Good Science Project
Back in 1980, Berkeley physicist Richard Muller published a piece in Science that is one of the most compelling articles I’ve ever read as to how government funding affects scientific innovation. The title is “ Innovation and Scientific Funding,” and I retyped some of the passages here for easier access.
The first notable quotation, as to why bureaucratic requirements—no matter how well-motivated—can be a death-knell for good research.
The periods of preparation and incubation are the most fragile in the innovation process, and more attention should be paid to them. Many of the procedures followed in the scientific funding process have the unintended effect of suppressing these stages. To stop the growth of a tree it is not necessary to chop the tree down; it is sufficient to continuously clip off the top. The procedures and restrictions that do the damage were created to achieve a measurably good effect while causing unmeasurably small harm. One of the obstacles to scientific innovation in the United States may be the cumulative effect of many regulations, each one of which does unmeasurably" small harm.
Exactly. Which is why it’s so hard to make reforms here. For any regulation or bureaucratic requirement you can name, someone will say it is an absolutely essential element of oversight that poses but a trivial imposition. But add up all of these requirements, and the cumulative effect is devastating.
