Scientific Knowledge as a Public Good

[HuckleB]

Scientific Knowledge as a Public Good -- Thinking about benefits of research to society could break down barriers

http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/6/20/10/1

Life scientists are accustomed to thinking about quantifying the products of their knowledge in terms of such things as papers published, discoveries made, or, in the case of applied science, diseases treated. But there is another useful way to think about the value of scientific knowledge, which is as a public good.

The public goods characteristic of ideas and knowledge – that they are freely available to all and are not diminished by use – can be traced to St. Augustine (circa 400). Adam Smith laid the conceptual economic basis for public goods in 1776, but economists did not give much attention to them until the mid-1950s. However, it has been difficult to reduce knowledge to numerical form and measurement, particularly in the basic sciences, so that there is little hard data on the linkage between scientific knowledge and growth.1

Still, it is safe to say that scientific knowledge in its pure form is a classic public good. As such, it is a keystone for innovation and in its more applied forms is a basic component of the economy. The problem, however, is that the production of such knowledge has a cost, and the results are not necessarily available to all. In his presidential address at the National Academy of Sciences in 2002, Bruce Alberts noted that "the efforts that many scientists are making to strengthen world science by disseminating both knowledge and research tools...are being counteracted by several forces."2

Methods of communicating knowledge have vastly improved, but patents and copyrights have existed in various forms since the late 1400s and have become more pervasive. Social and political inhibitions and constraints to some forms of science and technology provide other barriers.

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The beginning of a very necessary conversation, IMHO.

[punpirate]

1. We take it for granted that...

... some government resources are used for scientific research, and also take for granted that the benefits are freely distributed in society, but that latter belief is incorrect. Much of government research is directed toward the military (as of 2000, about 53% of all government research funds went to defense), and is therefore inaccessible to virtually all of the public. Other research, such as in pharmaceuticals, is often assigned to profit-making entities without charge, or for a nominal charge which never equals the cost to the taxpayer of such research.

Given the decreasing funding to universities today (combined with increasing corporate control over university research departments), and declining enrollment in the sciences (in part due to changes in immigration), the United States is no longer seen as the most preferable place in the world to do basic science. That's going to have an impact down the road a ways.