[extropy-chat] Three-quarters of N. American's support stem cellresearch

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Jun 19, 2004, at 5:02 PM, Reason wrote:
> Substantial private
> funding just doesn't happen under those circumstances - the risk is too
> great.


What is this hypothetical risk?  This is not a realistic analysis.

The only risk is perhaps the loss of some capital expenditure.  That's 
it.  If some day the government decided to ban research outright, all 
you've lost as a private funder is a little bit of upfront capital that 
wasn't amortized.

And it isn't like losing that bit of money is a big deal to private 
funding, since they were often never expecting to see a dime of return 
on the money they spent in the first place.

So where is the risk?  The biggest risk these folks face is that the 
blue sky research they are funding won't pan out.

Sounds like disasturbation to me.  Doom and gloom scenarios are 
exciting to talk about, but is generally based on dubious assumptions 
upon even a cursory inspection.

j. andrew rogers