[the_erd]

I'm not sure that leaving details out of the proposal is really that smart. It seems like we're doing the public a disservice by excluding them from the kind of information traditional funding sources use to make allocation decisions, because it reduces the basis for making funding decisions on all proposed research to oversimplified descriptions, while providing no insight into traditional research funding.

In other words, people can get duped into funding research that is not as well founded as this one (supposedly), and we pass over a key opportunity to teach the public how organizations like the NIH make funding decisions. Maybe if people had an idea about how rigorously funding proposals are analyzed they would be less likely to cut science funding because of inane arguments like Sarah Palin made about public funding to study fruit flies.

[omnisci]

NIH has recently changed how they deal with grants. They are asking for less methodology information and more of the conceptual info. I support that, especially since most of the methods will be modified throughout the experiment and commonly read over anyway. This is one step above that. The concept and end result is the important portion for people to get interested in the project. Those who are in the field know what autoradiography is and how it is done and the investor who is interested in the outcome isn't going to understand/care. If you have limited space to pitch an idea, are you going to spend more time explaining the idea and why it’s awesome, or the intricate details as to how you are going to do it? You talk about the idea and why it’s awesome, if someone is interested in knowing how, they ask. In regards to Sarah Palin’s inane arguments, I agree/disagree. There is some amazing science going on, and some realllllly shitty science going on, both of which are federally funded. This is a huge topic (also one of the main focuses of my YC application) and I don’t know if the details of this proposal, or proposals like this are the venue to really get at those issues. However, I do understand your point and I think it is valid, just in a different venue.