fantastic stuff! very exciting work.

I meant none of those things you list. Rather that the notion that we can fix science funding simply by convincing the public of the importance of funding science is incorrect.

6. "educating the public about the value of science" is clearly important but has not been very impactful in improving science funding. We have to think harder how to make increased investment in science important to political parties, because right now this is not the case

5. Governments do what people want them to do to an extent but also have basic agendas driven by ideology. The lesson for me is that as scientists our priority should be to find out how to make funding science a key ideological goal of political parties.

4. Another example is how the NIH budget doubled between 1998 and 2003 under both a democratic & GOP administration with very different agendas. Both parties at the time really believed in funding science. Subsequent administrates of either party have not funded science well.

3. You could argue that public opinions influences what politicians & policy makers decide to do but I think that doesn't turn out to be the case. For example, recent governments in Canada were outwardly very pro science, but science funding stagnated.

2. In fact there is little correlation between how much people value science & how well it is funded. What actually matters? How much of a priority science funding is to the politicians & policy makers that run government

2. But science is by nature & design inefficient & methodical with long stretches where things move slowly between brief bursts of fast progress. This is how it should be, cautious, thorough, reflective, thoughtful. This is what we need to teach the public. Slow science is good science.