let's talk about this topic

Absolutely, neo. Unfortunately, there are many legal stumbling blocks out there that hamper advancement.

Welcome to A2K

but, how to convince THE public and the legislature to cut down the nasty fetters on research work?

Neo. Here's the way it works. (the public has nothing to do with it). Researchers don't want to lose their grants; pharmaceutical companies see no worth in orphan drugs; People who participate in voluntary research are just guinea pigs hoping to help themselves and maybe others, and then there are the nay-sayers who use every excuse in the world to prevent stuff on the basis of morality. Bet if one of their kids, husbands, wives, themselves had a weird disease, you'd see the wheels turning rather quickly.

letty
Your response makes me think about Nancy Reagan. She's Republican all the way, except where it concerns Ronnie and stem cell research.

Hmmm. I don't think that the relative controversy of the results should have anything to do with the worthiness of the study. Studies that are rigorous, peer-reviewed, and otherwise shown somehow to be good science are nearly always worthy of being funded, IMO.

There are plenty of shoddy studies around controversial issues, though; seeking to prove, seeking to disprove. I dislike a shoddy study pretty much no matter what. (If it "proves" something I agree with, because it discredits that position by being shoddy; and if it "proves" something I disagree with for obvious reasons.)

If the study is rigorous, I will accept the conclusions regardless of my preconceptions (though if I really disagree, I'll probably keep an eye out for another study that might go a different direction.)

Ya know, that whole Sherlock Holmes thing; eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Now, on some sort of ranking -- whether say cancer research should get more money than researching the life cycles of dung beetles -- oy. So hard to say.

Money spent on research
It's never possible to tell what you don't know, so the search for abstract knowledge is always valuable. Most of us would make good choices in life, given correct and sufficient information. It's always what you didn't count on that kills you. The same is true for nations, civilizations. Abstract research is the one thing we should never stint on. The more "controversial" the subject is, the more true this becomes.

Re: Money spent on research

yes, those knowledge that seems useless currently just like silent genes in genome of organisms, although they are not functional now, but if the environment changes, the large pool of silent genes may include vital preadaptations to survive in new environment