HOW DO YOU SELL BASIC RESEARCH? - THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

HOW DO YOU SELL BASIC RESEARCH? | 2012-10-30

In the real world, people who get published and those who get grant money are determined, do so by satisfying those who give the grants. I have reviewed and helped make out grant applications.

The best research is basic research, grant money used to find out random things, things the average bovine voter thinks are silly and useless.

Nobody has any idea of what will come up a detailed study of some aspect of high speed physics, much less a study of exactly where a kind of bee goes and why. Senator Proxmire made a great reputation looking at the names of NSF grants and making fun of them as Golden Fleece.

As luck would have it, some of the studies he ridiculed most loudly were used in epoch-making discoveries.

By definition no one can guess what the practical potential of basic research is.

That's why it's called BASIC research.

So how do you sell the project if you can't argue for it in practical terms? How do you sell basic research?

This is the kind of question which, when STATED, leads to heretical thinking. Fortunately no one but me would ever STATE it.

Yours is one of a hundred proposals stacked up for one grant. How do you compete?

Rule One: You don't piss off the Ford Foundation.

Ford was a right winger. Today the Ford Foundation Board is hard left and has been for generations. The number of grant givers who are not ruled by leftists can be counted on the fingers of one hand, a hand that has been in a shark's mouth.

The first thing any foundation or government agency will do is delete applications that are from people who have offended their "point of view." This is so routine no one even brings it up.

In a case where no one can say what the practical effect of research will be, you must depend on approval.

This is obvious, but only if you STATE the question:

So how do you sell the project if you can't argue for it in practical terms? How do you sell basic research?

And no one but me is going to state it.

COMMENTS (7)

#1 Jason | 2012-10-30 06:49

It would be nice if a few of the right wing White billionaires would set aside money to fund un-PC research, instead of buying football teams or granting hundreds of millions to college football.

#2 Daniel Genseric | 2012-10-30 10:30

Name me a 'right wing billionaire' and I will show you a Respectable Conservative.

#3 Dave | 2012-10-30 09:48

You are talking about the basic financial plumbing of the Establishment when you speak of these huge tax exempt funds. This is Mommy Professor's piggy bank, her "plantation capital".

Since these funds are way out of compliance with the terms of their tax exemptions and are being looted by the corrupt Establishment, they can be seized. You will know when a real revolution has transpired when Mommy Professor's piggy bank has been emptied into more responsible hands. Mommy Professor will be in hand-cuffs and leg chains, being led away in orange jump suits, exposed for who she really is.

These "more responsible hands" who will get the benefit of these funds that are no longer Mommy Professor's, will be white scientists coordinating and doing basic research.

#4 Daniel Genseric | 2012-10-30 10:33

Dave, you are very succinct. Not quite as succinct as Bob, but you're getting close. I enjoy reading your posts.

#5 shari | 2012-10-30 12:03

So an awful lot of grants, must go for no real research at all. Just to fund anti-white propaganda and pc jobs and gatekeeping. Those anti-whites sure know how to run an economy, into the ground.

#6 Undercover Lover | 2012-10-30 15:44

Umm. Hmm. How do you sell basic research? That's an interesting question.

Umm. Well I don't think it should require the approval of a specific group. Because then you have a group that only gives grants to what THEY approve of. But the researcher can't just get money for free either. Otherwise you might get people doing stuff in the name of "research" just to get money.

Perhaps a more interactive way tax payers can decide where their tax dollars go. With the internet, something could easily be set up that allows individuals so send their tax dollars to whatever they want to support. They could send money to the military, school, research, whatever.

Then if they wanted to get more specific like research into where a kind of bee goes and why, then they could. I think there will always be people out there who would be interested in these random research topics and wouldn't mind putting 2% of their tax dollars into it. I know I wouldn't

That's my proposal anyways. Maybe I missed the point of the post

#7 Skorpion | 2012-10-30 21:03

Just tell them what they want to hear. Point out how your research could somehow help "people living with AIDS" better "manage" their disease, how you might uncover the exact amount of "carbon taxes" needed to mitigate the effects of "global warming", or even how you might lead to a new understanding of the inner workings of "Jewish suffering" under the "Holocaust" and/or "anti-semitism." Oh, and how blacks might be turned into geniuses as your research could actually provide new breakthroughs in the fight against "inequality" and "discrimination."

Somehow I think that's not what Bob had in mind though so I look forward to his answer.