Your definition of 'essential' and my definition of essential are vastly different, and we are both very interested in science. Imagine the difference between your definition and most Americans who wind up paying for the thing. I personally would rather see the $8 billion go to medical research or energy research with a closer time horizon than physics research.
Agreed. I'd like to see the energy industry fumble around with maps trying to locate oil deposits because this new fangled GPS-thing doesn't quite work right.
Personally I don't have a very strong opinion on where the funding should go at all, just that it should exist and that it should be increased by an order of magnitude at least. Even experts in a field can have a hard time deciding where to allocate resources, what hope do I have? And more importantly what the hell business does Congress have providing for these allocations? They don't know shit.
I would rather shovel billions at universities with little more than an unenforced request that they spend it on pure research, than allow Congress any control over scientific funding at all.
Mainly I just think that drawing attention to scientific funding as some kind of waste of taxpayer money when it is such a drop in the bucket is more about serving the interests of the American conservative establishment in villainizing intellectuals than actually solving a problem.
