[_aleph2c_]

If you write out an idea that sounds plausible and well-thought-out, it doesn't mean that reality will agree with you, it means you have become a better politician. If you have passed it through a committee, and they agree with your idea, it means you are closer to the zeitgeist, not to reality.

As any one in here knows from troubleshooting complex systems, the first seemingly sensible idea is usually wrong. To understand, you need many ideas, and to systematically update your model and disprove each hypothesis, using the evidence, and the build up in your intuition, to tune your next hypothesis. Science is more about hacking than it is about getting a well-written paper past a committee. The feedback loop shouldn't be slowed down with a political step.

[lnwlebjel]

> it doesn't mean that reality will agree with you, it means you have become a better politician

This is true, and we're reliant on the reviewers being in touch with reality, which I gather is not always the case, though in my (limited) experience it has been. Writing proposals does feel different than writing papers and I do worry about getting too divorced from reality. I endeavor to stick to nonfiction!

The slowing of the feedback loop is only necessary if you wish to fund your work from sources that require it. Self funding through other means would have advantages.

[throwawaymaths]

I once dealt with a DOE project manager that was excited to be funding biology because he had minored in biology in college. At one of our meetings he asked, "I'm sorry can you explain what a promoter is"?