[SpamCop-Social] Re: Idiot

[HeyBub]

D.F. Manno wrote:
> In article <pete+usenet-6C7FC0.10051826052005 at news.cesmail.net>,
> Pete Stephenson <pete+usenet at heypete.com> wrote:
>
>> What about companies like IBM, AMD, and Intel? DuPont? Dow Chemical?
>> Various universities like Stanford, MIT, RIT, and others? They all
>> have their own research divisions, and IBM throws /billions/ of
>> dollars into research every year. University research accounts for
>> substantial amounts of what is developed, both with and without
>> federal funding.
>
> Is the research being done by IBM and the other corporations you cite
> _basic_ research or _applied_ research? There's a difference. Research
> by corporations and by universities funded by corporations is mostly
> applied research.
>
When I worked for Shell, the company had two research divisions: Exploration 
& Production (in Houston) and Product Development (in California). The 
California operation studied such things as motor oil additives, refinery 
optimization, and the like. The Houston group studied the theoretical 
genesis of petroleum, how it moves, how its various constituent parts are 
created, and similar characteristics. The budgets for each lab were similar.

In today's world, Apple, Google, and others devote significant resources to 
letting researchers wander off on their own paths.

Conversely, academic pursuits are often financed by royalties paid on prior 
institutional discoveries and patents, so even the Ivory Towers have a 
"profit incentive."

The debate over stem-cell research is not about dollars, tax or otherwise; 
the tax funding debate is merely a proxy. The amounts involved in whether 
the federal government sponsors such research are miniscule. The debate is 
between those who draw a bright line on life and the moral hatefulness of 
destroying it and those who say "once we get to experiment on embryos and 
killing them, we can proceed to the elderly and terminally ill. Then we can 
feast on the 'undesirables.' "