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spike wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<font face="Courier New, Courier">The private money guys went straight
for the bigger prize, adult stem cell<br>
therapies. These are starting to pay now. We still haven't
any real<br>
promise from embryonic stem cells; they are too dangerous. They
want to<br>
become a baby, or failing that a huge tumor.</font></blockquote><br>
Frank Tipler once recommended to me a book on why government support of
basic R&D was overall a bad idea, but I can't remember what it was.
Will have to ask him. However, Ron Bailey reviewed another book on the
topic. An excerpt:<br><br>
Kealey shows in nearly every case the crucial inventions of the past two
and half centuries were called forth by markets, not invented by
scientists working from ivory towers. These include the steam engine,
cotton gin, textile mills, railroad engines, the revolver, the electric
motor, telegraph, telephone, incandescent light bulb, radio, the
airplanethe list is nearly endless. <br><br>
The story of the airplane is instructive. After the Spanish-American War,
the federal government supplied a grant of $73,000 to the director of the
Smithsonian Institution, Samuel Pierpont Langley to develop
heavier-than-air craft. All six of Langley's prototypes crashed, the last
one on October 7, 1903. Two months later, Ohio bicycle mechanics, Orville
and Wilbur Wright, launched their first successful flight at Kitty Hawk,
N.C. Their R&D budget? About $1,000. <br><br>
The Failure of Centralized Scientific Planning<br>
A review of Sex, Science and Profits: How People Evolved to Make
Money<br>
Ronald Bailey | May 20, 2008<br>
<a href="http://www.reason.com/news/show/126584.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.reason.com/news/show/126584.html</a><br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
-------------------------------------<br>
Max More, Ph.D.<br>
Strategic Philosopher<br>
Extropy Institute Founder<br>
<a href="http://www.maxmore.com/" eudora="autourl">www.maxmore.com</a><br>
max@maxmore.com<br>
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