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by letitgo12345
3839 days ago
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I don't understand -- we've spend trillions on wars, lost trillions because of poor policies that line the pockets of pharma and wall street, hundreds of billions on sports and entertainment (which is not a waste but is not contributing to technology either...), and you have an objection to spending a few billion on producing knowledge? |
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Equivocation:
You used "we" to mean government ("trillions on wars"), then private citizens ("hundreds of billions on sports..."), then back to government ("a few billion on producing knowledge"). "Our" war spending is certainly not related to "our" watching ESPN.
Red herrings:
War spending, lining corporate pockets, and private entertainment are unrelated to whether -- and to what extent -- fundamental physics should be government-funded. In fact, one may be a peace-loving socialist and still not believe that this research is the best investment for a nation's finite resources.
Begging the question:
You've assumed that research into string theory, multiverse theory, etc. produce knowledge, which is the very question being debated here. Knowledge is generally regarded as justified true belief [4] (albeit with qualifiers [5]). At issue here is whether one's scientific beliefs are adequately justified without empirical support -- i.e., whether we're producing any knowledge at all regarding this issue.
As a disclaimer, I was a researcher at a government lab for 5 years. In many cases, I believe scientific research is worth funding. That said, we should take care to present sound arguments regardless of the topic.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief#Justified_true_belief 5. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/