Brady does a great job here as a respectful devil's advocate.

We need more people like Phil. I'm fully behind him on this whole video.

The whole point of science is to increase our understanding of the universe and how it works on a fundamental level. Practical applications are then built upon this; not the other way around!

Brady is very good at his job. This interview is great.

It's so true. If he and the other scientists wanted to do R&D for the government or corporation they'd sign up for that. It's not the universities position to do the R&D for the corporations. They should do Research for the sake of research and furthering the field of science. It is the academics roles in society to advance the fields of study, to show us new things, to invent and create new ways of doing things. It is the corporations responsibility to then take those advancements and implement them.

I love the drawings in the background

15:25 . The thing is, professional scientists tend to be smarter than the average 10 year old

I worked for a year at a university in England. I left largely because of this. Prof Moriarty is exactly right.

Professor Moriarty, I am continually impressed by your dedication and integrity.

Here's an idealistic solution to this problem.... get more scientists in government!

Just revisited this and was reminded by how much I agree with Phil's view. Despite playing devil's advocate here, hats off to Brady and all those behind his great KZfaq videos for all the educational value in them, as well as the entertainment!

I have not seen a youtube video with this amount of passion in it for a long time. when Brady asked one of the questions you could almost hear anger or disagreement in his tone.

It is very simple: The banksters want the money.

13:39 THIS is really relevant these coming weeks! Government is trying to pass a bill to keep institutions and universities from doing research which criticises government policies and who knows what else they want unquestioned... Which is absolutely ridiculous!

Bravo Professor Moriarty! Finally a science researcher pointing out the difference between basic science research verses the applied sciences. We are currently witnessing the funding of science research being skewed to those projects with a predictable profit by individuals having only a superficial understanding of science resulting in a stagnation of the research process. We urgently need to communicate this to the populous and return to discovery for discoveries sake.

“We’re in a financial crisis”..... As we are now in the middle of the pandemic.... I think this speaks for itself.

bring him to hello internet! That would be the best episode yet, with him and CGP grey talking and you

The funding for research in total is a limited commodity, so someone has to figure out what gives what. You can't just have scientists figure it out based on their own opinions on how much something is worth. While you can't predict with absolute accuracy what will be the next scientific boom, you can determine the probability based on both past information and how things are currently going. you can then use this to determine multiple monetary ranges with different probability scores.

It's important to realise what motivates scientists in the first place. With this kind of approach in the long term fewer people are interested in doing science. but of course corporations only care about the short term

Hey Brady, Are you going to upload the full video? Not that it wasn't long enough, but I could watch more!

Great questions Brady, I really enjoyed the passion of both Professor Moriarty and yourself. Very interesting video. Thanks!

Whoever the daddy referred to in the scrawlings on the whiteboard is has the same birthday as me! I'd be honored to have the same birthday as Dr Moriarty, he's a straight up science badass, and couldn't be more right about the funding situation. It's a pity, for example, that we never built the particle accelerator we should have here in the US almost 20 years ago. Give any and all monies required to basic research, regardless of seeming profitability.

Love it, love it, love it when you guys tackle the controversial issues. My roommate feels pretty strongly about the wisdom of the free market. I'm still learning about markets, subsidizing, market forces, government spending, you name it. But I love to hear from my roommate about economics, and I'm glad that you have explored the topic, too.

Excellent conversation. The professors arguments are spot on. And Brady, what an excellent journalism !!

True scientists don't do science in order to make money. We need more people out there like Professor Moriarty.

I'm referring to an abstraction based upon what component you're working on at the moment. For example: Your team may be tasked with developing a microcontroller. One person may be in charge of say, the ALU - another in charge of developing various peripherals, etc. The engineer developing the ALU has a specific end user in mind - the engineer(s) afterward utilizing the ALU to create processes that build upon it. Each layer upward is an abstraction built upon the previous step.

One thing we can take from this is that challenging the norm, the status quo or even the direction of advancement is not a bad thing and we should not be afraid to do so. Opposition makes us view what we are doing critically or at the very least gives us pause. People like Phil Moriarty should be given praise and thankfully with people like Brady they have a forum to speak out to a very large audience.

Writing as a physicist in the US, this is deeply true.

I worry that our law makers (in both the UK and the USA) are grossly under qualified to not only understand science but to fund scientific projects. Having a Congressman decide what projects are wort6h funding and which have little or no merit is like asking your auto mechanic to perform brain surgery. These men and women are, for the most part trained as lawyers. They have had little (if any) scientific training, and remain completely scientifically illiterate. Worse very few even have the tools or skills to think critically. They depend on gut feelings and advisers when making decisions. If two advisers give conflicting opinions or advice on ANY subject, let alone science they lack the ability to know which one is more likely to be correct. How hard would it be to train these people up? Typically (at least in the US) there are several weeks between the time a new congressman wins the election and the time he actually begins his work. How hard would it be to set up a class on science literacy and critical thinking? We don't need doctorate level courses here. We need to explain to them HOW science works and why it is such a good system for discovery. Surely that could be done in a few days AT MOST. After they are up to snuff in science another couple of days should be all that is needed to give them the skills they can use to decide the real, best approach to solving problems. I can't see something like this being terrible expensive, and in the long run we would get better, more efficient laws.We'd get MUCH more efficient use of the tax payers money, which would, in the long run, lead to lower taxes. Why can't we make this happen?

I wholeheartedly agree with the good Prof's view on the 'impact statement' thing. Science is exploration, not a business venture.

While I am not a scientist, i have basic scientific training to GCSE level (which i failed) I would like to share my adoration of This professors views on funding - lazers are awesome as an example of us not knowing what is going to work. we have a moral obligation to fund a large amount of science, the returns are long lasting and long term yet often not immidiatly apparent.

This interview made me a huge fan of Prof. Moriarty. I respect his opinion to the deepest core. I agree that; yes, there are flaws with the 'current' style of dishing out money (via these peer groups). But, if you let history tell it's tale, government controlled anything usually will fall to corruption at an absolute level. Where science is involved; projects that have a predicable monetary gain will be the only ones to get money, instead of those that will teach us new and interesting things.

I love this type of dialog...It's neutrally informative.

Loving the doodles on his whiteboard!

Professor Moriarty, I take my hat off to you. I think there are plenty of scientists out there who feel the same way but can't speak up because it would cost them their job. Thank you for standing up for science.

so im 19 and i am thinking about going to university to do physics, Is there an area in the world or the UK or where im from, canada, that you know of as a sort of good place to go to work in the field of physics, i have always wanted to live in the uk and often thought of being a professor . but i also love research.

Gotta love this guy!

"... and therefor we should not predetermine what we are trying to do except to find out more about it" - Richard Feynman

Phil's key insight is that this change turns the universities into subsidised R&D for industry. This of course opens up fantastic money making opportunities for the bureaucrats who make the decisions and the industries who incentivise them.

Excellent, excellent video, one of the best I've seen in a long time. Besides the science, *this* is why I follow channels such as these. It really puts the science in perspective.

Science needs a vast amount more funding everywhere in the world.

Heres one example; in your video about light through glass and lab demonstration(thanks for it, it was very helpful in my studies) you stated that transmission through glass was really absorption-emmission; however it seems to me (from studies in light and this position was held by many like newton etc) that transmission through glass (inflection as they called it) is the same basic phenomena as reflection. And thus, it makes the hypothesis that photons travel "through" glass very likely.

This information, in total, can be sent to a budgeting committee who can then figure out how much money in total research funding gets. You then can have different scientists divvy out the money, based on whatever criteria you want. This allows for the scientific community to control what gets funding, while still giving numbers and figures to the people who need them. Granted, this is just one idea, but at least I think it makes a case without ignoring any concerns.

Thank you for your comments Prof. Moriarty. I totally agree with you!

In the end the user in question is an abstraction anyway - it depends on what the project is to be used for. Most especially in my field of computer engineering, we design components with an end purpose and user in mind. Typically you're working on a single system at a time to integrate later into a larger system. If you're looking at the top level of abstraction, then it depends on what the goals are for the project as to what it will perform. Appreciate the sentiment though.

will you post the unedited version?

Dear Prof. Moriarty, I just wanted to tell you how Very much I admire and respect the courage you've shown here. I hope that these contrived financial crises won't distract you, or any other scientist, from doing their research. We live in a backwards world; where the wise are ignored and the idiotic are cheered. I stand with you and those like you. As I'm sure you already know: you are not alone. We won't let the corps. run this show for much longer... "We are One planet" -Carl Sagan :)

On a related subject: Barbara Van Dyck, a researcher in the department of architecture at the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain), got fired a few months ago because she was involved in a protest against a corporate funded research field growing a batch of GM potatoes. She protested this research because she felt the research was biased (they were already promoting the potatoes, while they weren't even grown yet, let alone tested) and because of that she lost her job at the University.

This discussion is very applicable to NASA funding in the US! These exact comments and questions come up all the time in discussions of why the US should fund NASA to do (pick your mission/technology).

awesome video. I love how near the end of the video you were able to play the role of your detractors.

I love how they present good points on both sides of the argument in this video. In addition, there are few thing in the world that are more fascinating to watch than people speaking about things which they're truly passionate about. Great video. Long live SixtySymbols!

Where is Phil from ? He sounds like he is from south Dublin, maybe Meath ? or even Wicklow ? Completly irrelevant but I would like to know.

The good Professor says he is quite Left of Centre. As an Economic and Social Libertarian I would have to say I am not Left of Centre. Regardless of ideology, I DO AGREE WITH HIS MESSAGE. Put aside the issue about the amount of funding available, there is no question that the best people to determine where the money allocated to Science should be spent are the experts - Scientists. If the government chooses to spend money on the sciences, it should do so where the market otherwise would NOT.

wait... he's called Moriarty!

Create a website and publish it on there...?

Hard hitting interview, Brady! Very interesting to watch.

Thesis (spending funds)....Antithesis (granting funds)..... Synthesis (this wonderful video...)

Truth to power professor. Damn right.

The more videos I watch with Phil the harder it becomes to dislike him. He is awesome!

For once I slightly understand what is on the whiteboard behind them.

Professor Moriarty hits the nail on its head when he said it was fundamentally wrong and that he feels compelled to speak up. This is the type of attitude people should have about what they care about, because this is the only way proper discourse can come and conclusions drawn from, if we all speak our opinion and teach as well as learn from others. I'm also very pleased that Brady asked hard questions and didn't just have a video of intelligent remarks but rather a video of conversation.

I'd love to see an update to this video by Professor Moriarty.

That's, exactly what is happening in Greece at the moment. Even getting funded a few thousand euros is extremely difficult. I am with Phil all the way but unfortunately the economy demands such horrible and unjust measures. Thank you Brady for your excellent work on letting people like Phil, Ed, Roger, Michael, Laurence, Meghan, Professor Poliakoff, Pete, Stephen, Debbie, Sam, Darren and others share their knowledge and opinions.

Love the disclaimer

I cannot agree more with his statements here. Trying to corral science into a predictable direction goes against pure scientific discovery. And as far as the financial crisis, what sense does it make to cripple your long term development? Yes, theoretical physics does not bring about next year's iPhone... but it DOES bring about next the generation's iBrain. Thanks Prof Moriarty for standing up for your passions. I'm not a citizen of GB, but i think we're seeing similar problems all over.

@nilbud Because that disproves my point effectively.

Has the sound been muted? Or has the Professor been silenced?

Love this!

"Because it's far from market" DAMN GOOD ANSWER!!

Issues of foreseable economic value and social benefit drive US university research fundining as well. It is a worldwide problem where short term return is the motivation for public funding. It is interesting that R&D in the private sector expects government grants for product commercialization research(SBIR grants as an example) and fundamental university research grant writing has become allied to similar criteria. Large companies do not want to risk shareholder profit on basic research so they tend to aquire small startups that have assumed all the economic risk and have products close to commercialization. The general public on average does not have long range thinking beyond the day after tomorrow which coincides with their shortsighted elected representatives who look at the next election as a basis for decisions on support for basic universitiy's research. The US elected Representatives will spend a trillion dollars on perceived security threats at home and abroad, but support of research on some fundamental aspect of science that gets picked up by the media is political suicide. Until our general population overcomes its phobia of science & mathematics the status quo of value driven research will continue. When I hear politicians say that "the jury is still out on evolution" and we should let the private sector determine what is important for education in our schools and research in our universities, it is obvoius that there are some substantial challenges ahead for humanity's progress toward enlightenment and understanding of our universe.

I think we can put our differences beside us, for science...

wow.. super nice… Thank you.

i wish brazil had these problems, but we have no decent funding for science :(

Wow......I think this is one of the few times I have been absolutely focused on listening and understanding something like this. I hate politics yet I must be vigilant and pay attention lest what I/we take for granted gets stolen from right under our noses.

Excellent video. We expect scientists to be rational, methodical and honest. We ask too much if we expect them to be clairvoyant as well.

Are you allowed to accept private funding? If so, can private individuals or groups make donations? No "strings" attached.

@sharperguy I don't think this does get around the problem, it would only support the short term financially driven research which was one of the issues outlined in the vid.

My politics are fairly right of center, but I still fully agree that government funded science shouldn't be an indirect corporate subsidy. Companies should do their own R&D, academia has a different function altogether.

The way it seems to me, the main issue that he is discussing is who actually decides who gets the money. Am I getting the wrong idea or is this essentially what he means?

I really enjoyed this video...I encourage you to create more videos like this from time to time! Keep up the good work.

Can anyone give me a link to the sociolgist Jon Simon? Can't find any of his stuff on the internet.

Oh man I can't wait for this

GOOD FOR YOU!! Scientists aren't meant to roll over and do what they're told. If they did, we wouldn't have half of the technology and knowledge that we have today. Even though I'm a biological anthropology student physics blows my mind :) It explains everything. Literally.

How does it not?

brady, if you got to talk to the head of the EPSRC i would love you. i'll write the letter for you! and phil!!! loved it. i compleatly agree with you.

Dude, you're off on a massive tangent. In fact, in your tangential rant, you directly confirmed my initial point. You listen to your users and produce a system that fits their needs. Well defined user (which is an abstraction based on all users' needs), well defined purpose (or usage) of the system. Once again, you have a problem with a specific company. Hell, I don't even produce products for a company within the context of my university. Where I end up after uni is done I don't know.

I'm a bit late and I’m not the greatest economics student ever, but I think prof. Phil Moriaty is confusing different aspects referent to gov science funding from the economics point of view. 1º as said, there are long term from research that come from spin-offs and from innovation on top of innovation. These benefits can be apprehended by privates (think pharmaceutical companies) with application of a patent or not such as the academic research. Let's not forget that even in the case of private funded research, when you file for a patent you have to make a full description, giving others (your peers) insight into your discoveries. 2º Why gov finances directly science. We know that 1º is considered to have a positive impact on society (social well-being). So because this impact is positive state takes positive action funding research. Of course the way to maximize the effect of the policy is by making i available to everyone interested in it (this means that there are no cost to accesses research not driving out possible interest in it, so no one is excluded). As a final note, this is a pure microeconomic way of view this problem. Economic problems should never be treated lightly. I recommend for further reading: Microeconomics with Calculus by Jeffrey M. Perloff (of course lol) I hope I'm clear enough.

100% behind Prof Moriarty

I agree with Phil. Governments don't tell companies what they should invest their money in, which stocks to buy, how to structure themselves ect, for a very good reason; they lack the expertise to make a properly informed decision involving specialized fields. You can't expect a career politician, or a department of civil servants, to be able to accurately evaluate the merits of particular research applications. Advancements in science depend on broadening our knowledge, not our marketability.

I agree. A public not-for-profit corporation, chartered by the US govt, to do space and aviation research has so many advantages.

Professor Moriarty hey? What a name to have.

Very interesting points indeed, and while I don't like to take sides in an argument before I've heard both sides this is pretty convincing, and it very much resonates with the kind of stance I take on Politics in general; leave the decisions to those who know what they're talking about, which is why I think it's ridiculous we don't have political education in school when we have a population of voters.

Respect to Phil, from a PhD student.

Professor Moriarty, please move to Scotland, vote for independence, start a new scientific political party and I'll vote for you... Agree with EVERYTHING you said!

@jacksawild I agree on the point that we could eliminate the influence of personality or popularity in an election campaign to some extent, something which ultimately has no correlation to the effectiveness of a leader. But personal views are important, especially regarding social legislation. There are a number of roles which would not benefit from having an executive with a professional degree. Workers rights for example, is determined by which side of the political spectrum you stand.

I love what he had to say regarding funding basic sciences vs translational science. The best translational work is being scooped up by industry, so let them spend that money.

Thing is you started with an example that is completely different than what you were referring to. A house is supposed to do something- remain intact- where as an experiment is supposed to prove something, to try out something, but even if the experiment's result disagrees with the hypothesis it's still not a failure. An experiment is not designed to do something particular, or if it is, it's then not an experiment but a demonstration, which can fail. An experiment can't fail.

Fundamental research is very needed, but it often takes decades before it pays off. I give the example of Quantum Physics in the 20's/30's leading to semiconductors in the 50's and ubiquitous integrated circuits today. Imagine if we understood gravity better, we might have Jetons' flying cars in 2100. The discussion is on innovation vs. revolution. Science needs to do the revolutions. Industry will do the innovation.

@Moriarty2112 It should be me thanking you for speaking out. I really admire what you did there and I'm also a big fan of sixtysymbols. :) If you haven't read it already, I recommend "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki, for a fresh perspective on this complex issue.

Love this video.