ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601120085
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD L. HOFFMAN
SHOULD government support basic research? That question comes up now with increasing frequency and, I think, increasing relevance.
One school of thought believes research should be funded by those components of society standing to gain most from the information that is generated. This is a perfectly practical view, with which I have no dispute.
In this connection, however, I think it is extremely important to make a clear distinction between what is "basic" and what is "applied," in both research and in knowledge generally. Many, perhaps most, people, are unaware of these categories.
One good way to visualize the difference is to imagine a pyramid composed of 1 million stone blocks. In this "knowledge pyramid," only the uppermost 100 blocks may represent the factual information currently useful in "applied" research. They rest upon a gigantic base composed of the other 999,900, which are the reservoir of general knowledge. Much of it may be totally useless in a practical sense until at any - and unforeseeable - moment, some of it may become critically important.
Or imagine a library, the holdings of which were only "how-to" books. To the extent of the books' contents, patrons could continue to produce things or operate processes. But further, new development would be impossible in the absence of a storehouse of basic broad knowledge from which to derive the requisite "useful" information.
Or to use another analogy, any community that depends on a reservoir for its water supply normally wants, not only for immediate needs but for likely future requirements, a reservoir as voluminous as possible. The same should be true for knowledge.
I do take issue with the belief that basic research should be funded by "the private sector," implying industries and corporations whose raison d'etre is to make money by the sale of goods or services.
Most, if not all, commercial enterprises operate in an atmosphere of fierce competition, and the successful are those able to market their goods or services with the minimum of resource investment (that is, as cheaply as possible). Research and development are an integral part of most large operations. But the research must, obviously, be of an intensely practical kind, directed specifically toward improvement or marketability of the product.
It is naive to think otherwise, and unrealistic to expect profit margins to be infringed to support research that does not directly contribute to success. Any corporation that doesn't hesitate to dismiss its entire "middle management" stratum in order to increase its stock value is unlikely to put money into some black hole with no immediate return in sight.
Basic research is usually conducted toward the exploration and understanding of natural phenomena, resulting in the increase of generalized, unspecific knowledge. Any application to some money-generating process may be years in the future or may never occur at all.
But we slight such knowledge at our risk. Sir Alexander Fleming was not searching for an antibiotic when he came across the bactericidal properties of a mold (Penicillium) he was studying. The Curies had no idea whatever that their discoveries with radium would later have significant medical applications. Nor did Wilhelm Roentgen imagine that someday his "X-rays" could be used to see inside human bodies or find flaws inside steel beams.
None of these people was funded by "the private sector" of their time, and would not be now, because their research had no imaginable practical value. They would have qualified only for former Sen. William Proxmire's "Golden Fleece Award."
The research by Watson and Crick into the structure of DNA was funded by little more than pennies (from a foundation, not the for-profit sector), because at that time nobody had the remotest idea that any practical use might come from such information. Today we have the unimaginably significant area of genetic engineering based 100 percent on knowledge of DNA structure.
Mankind may count itself extremely lucky that scientists like these conducted basic research in the pursuit of truth and knowledge, mostly at their own expense.
Global society continues to become increasingly technical, and countries that fail to keep pace in education and in both kinds of research do so at their peril. Technologies that produce new materials and processes will continue to invest heavily in applied research, because they must. But there must still be an enormous and growing stockpile of random, irrelevant, "pure knowledge" from which to draw.
Today's trivial fact may be tomorrow's linchpin, and this is absolutely unpredictable. The odds may be a million to one that a particular plant will have effective anti-carcinogen ability - but who would wish to ignore that possibility on the grounds that it is too expensive to inventory regional plants and screen those with suspected relevance?
The collapse of an important natural resource - a fishery of some kind, let's say - cannot be comprehended, let alone managed, without knowledge of the entire ecosystem involved. This is knowledge laboriously put together (sometimes, if we're lucky) by the joint efforts of many people doing basic research, efforts that when taken separately seems to have no importance whatever.
Support of basic research is not a luxury to be slighted by public institutions, state or federal, but an obligation owed to present and future citizens and to society generally. Administrators and legislators attracted to the idea of reducing the cost of government by decimating research funds risk doing so to the detriment of their constituencies. Society progresses only as the result of the increase and diffusion of knowledge. To slight this dictum is to be penny-wise but pound-foolish.
Basic research is essential to the long-range welfare of society, and the public beneficiaries, through their established governments, must ensure that the reservoir of knowledge becomes increasingly larger and deeper.
Richard L. Hoffman of Radford is a former professor of biology at Radford University.
LENGTH: Long : 106 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: D.B. JOHNSON/L.A. Times Syndicateby CNB