[pvn]

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Profit is definitely not the best motivator for good science.

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What is?

Note also, without government regulation, you're still free to pursue (and fund) "unprofitable" research. You just can't depend on thuggery to come up with the money.

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What about gene patenting? One of this countries greatest scientific advantages is the free exchange of ideas. That type of patenting definitely screws that.

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Completely seperate issue. In fact, if you're for the "free exchange of ideas," then getting rid of government intervention is probably in your best interests.

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Yes basic science would suffer if you took the govt. out of funding. Basic science is where the big advances get made. However, it's often difficult to forsee profit or benefit at the time. Applied science will always be more profitable than basic.

Look at it this way. Arguably the biggest advances in neuroscience, Hodgkin and Huxley's work on the squid giant axon, Ramon y Cajal's neuron doctrine, etc. did not have an effect on human health (ar any profit, to word it differently) for quite a long time (decades) after they were done. Many at the time did not see the benefit of them performing these experiments.

I really don't see how you can just say that private funding would be better than govt. funding. You keep saying I'm harping on those points but I have a solid track record of progress behind my observations, you have some strange idealist conjecture.

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Again, nobody disputes that government funding has produced results. That *still* does not prove that it's the *best* method. You don't see how I can say private funding would be better? I posted a detailed argument about how private funding is better in efficiency, objectivity, and morality. Can you at least offer a counter argument before demanding more?