Private Donor Saves Fermilab

sciencehabit writes "In what has to be an embarrasment for the U.S. Department of Energy, an anonymous donor has ponied up $5 million to keep the country's only remaining particle physics laboratory operating efficiently."

The sad thing...

[nebaz (453974)]

is that it's probably no embarrassment at all.

Re:The sad thing...

[mrbluze (1034940)]

[The sad thing..] is that it's probably no embarrassment at all.

Even sadder is that the DOE has no sense of embarrassment.

Re:The sad thing...

[TubeSteak (669689)]

Even sadder is that the DOE has no sense of embarrassment.

It's not the DOE's fault.
The Congress and Senate slashed the budget, not the DOE.

Maybe you can say "well they didn't lobby hard enough to maintain or grow their funding...
but it's pretty obvious that science has not been a USA priority for quite some time now.

Re:The sad thing...

[mrbluze (1034940)]

Maybe you can say "well they didn't lobby hard enough to maintain or grow their funding... but it's pretty obvious that science has not been a USA priority for quite some time now.

I agree with you, but I think the timing of the US's scientific stagnation is also uncanny. It's been several generations since the last influx of extremely bright and educated scientists (and philosophers) from conquered lands. Iraq, I have to say, hasn't netted anything of the sort (with all due respect to Iraqis).

Is there a problem with the handing on of scientific knowledge in the US? Or is this a reflection of American cultural shortcomings? It seems to me that US culture is too shallow to recognize the importance of free & fair education 'for all'. If you don't provide equal opportunity to every child to excel and prove themselves in academia, then the chances of plucking the brightest from the far reaches of the bell curve diminish.

I say this knowing full well I'm going to be modded a troll or flaimbait or something.

Re:The sad thing...

[Cairnarvon (901868)]

Compared to Iraq, the Mars missions are pretty much free (and incalculably more useful). They don't even make a dent in the annual federal budget.

Small government, private philanthropy

[Lars512 (957723)]

Isn't this just a reflection of the style of government in the US? There seems to be a strong emphasis on small government, and then relying on private philanthropy to keep other things running.

Re:Small government, private philanthropy

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

Bush's faith-based initiatives are only symbolic gestures(tax breaks on donations and whatnot), but having that office still costs money and I'd still rather have that dollar of my taxes go to the EFF instead.

Some other slashdotter posted a good idea awhile back: That taxpayers should be able to directly allocate their taxes to the issues(and possibly the charities) that they care about, rather then just sending lump sums to the government(who will do what the government, and not necessarily the taxpayer, wants).

Re:Small government, private philanthropy

[bendodge (998616)]

That's called a pure democracy, and it doesn't work. There's a reason we're a republic.

Re:The sad thing...

[The Master Control P (655590)]

Goddamn government leftists and their "Computer" research. Fat lot of fuckin good that'll ever do us. If that dork Turing cares so much, let him pay for it! None of that stuff will ever see the light of day or help us in general.

Oh wait!

SCIENCE? Who needs that shit?

[Ralph Spoilsport (673134)]

MY GOD!!! We have nations to invade, and children to burn, and a treasury full of cash that needs to be looted by the military industrial complex. We don't need stuff like BASIC RESEARCH. Hell with that crap. We need bombs and guns to keep the empire rolling and extract other nations resources for our own lazy convenience.

RS

Re:SCIENCE? Who needs that shit?

[marshac (580242)]

What's sad is your comment was rated as Informative rather than funny...

Re:SCIENCE? Who needs that shit?

[OMNIpotusCOM (1230884)]

This is what happens when you give people mod points and say you have 3 or 5 or however many days to spend them. It's like giving an 8 year-old $10 and turning them lose in the candy store. You're not going to get any change back, and they sure as hell didn't think most of their decisions through, but you can really only blame yourself for being dumb enough to give the kid the money in the first place.

very humbled

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting AC on purpose, but i'm a karma-whoring regular.

I work at Fermilab, and everyone i know (and that's a lot of people) is ... overwhelmed and humbled by this gift. A couple people almost cried. It's ... well, it's a real morale booster and at the same time it's humbling. did i mention humbling? wow.

Thanks a million (x5!) mysterious friend!

now back to the antimatter and neutrinos...

Re:very humbled

[Rocketship Underpant (804162)]

It can either be seen as a massive wave or a massive particle, depending on how it's measured.

ugh, what spin.

[SuperBanana (662181)]

"Saved" Fermilab? Give me a break.

They might have had to lay off 200 employees. Out of TWO THOUSAND. Because their budget was "slashed" by just 22M (less than 10% of the budget.) Christ. It's not embarrassing, and the lab was in no danger of being "lost."

This is an apolitical issue

[kungfoolery (1022787)]

This isn't a Republican or Democratic issue, it is a societal one. Year after year, administration after administration, we as a society have been saying "we don't really consider science/education/research all that important."

Just look at the trends: companies are increasingly seeking out technical professionals overseas because they're churning out greater and greater number of graduates with science/engineering degrees with China pushing out 600,000 such graduates compared to the US' 70,000 per year [businessweek.com]; and how can we compete in biotech when the majority of our citizens can't grasp genetics nor do they even believe in evolution [livescience.com] (we beat Turkey though!)?

With the way we've been funding education and paying our teachers, we collectively give educators the big middle finger tipped with stinky poo every year. We're making these choices as individuals so we all have a hand in this appalling state of affairs.

Fermilab died a long time ago

[by Anonymous Coward]

Fermilab is barred from proposing and receiving science funding from the NSF or DOE on its own. Any high energy physics or computing project at Fermilab that gets funded has to be at least co-lead by a University professor. Over the last twenty years or so, as the universities became more and more aggressive about protecting their turf, more and more projects left the lab. When I left there six years ago, the writing was already on the wall. Smaller experiments were slashed in favor of the mega collaborations DZero and CDF, computing was shifted to the "Grid", and both trends were very efficient at shifting power and projects out of the lab. Except for operations, there was very little being done at the lab. One wonders if it was planned that way.

Re:Why Is That Embarassing??!!

[gardyloo (512791)]

Next time you use a computer, think: positrons are an unrivaled probe of defects in Si crystals. They make excellent diagnostic tools to see if a particular batch of computer chips is going to go bad.

Next time you or someone you care for gets radiological treatment, think: accelerators make lots of things which are used to diagnose and treat cancers.

Re:Why Is That Embarassing??!!

[jaxtherat (1165473)]

Sorry for feeding a troll, but two points:

1. Research (even esoteric) can have completely unexpected practical applications. Remember the steam engine? For hundreds of years it was nothing but a novelty, and then whammo! Industrial revolution. Just because something has no clear immediate practical applications now, doesn't mean squat for the future.
2. Compared to how big a proportion of your 'tax dollars' goes to funding despotic regimes, terrorist cells we use against 'other' terror cells, and kickbacks to the arms industry, I think you can wear the tiny percentage that goes to 'esoteric' research.

I'm sorry, but I wish people had a bit more perspective on these things :(

Umm, both houses are (D) - cuts are from congress

[Ada_Rules (260218)]

Ignoring for a moment the argument about whether or not the government should be funding this lets just talk about the full article v.s. your post... From the full article "Fermilab's financial crisis began in December, when the U.S. Congress passed a last-minute budget for the 2008 fiscal year (ScienceNOW, 19 December 2007). Legislators whacked Fermilab's budget from the $372 million requested by the Department of Energy (DOE) to $320 million, $22 million less than the lab had received in 2007. To balance the books, lab officials said they would have to cut about 200 of the lab's then-1950 employees." You have gotten so used to bashing Republicans that you really are missing the point that both parties are corrupt and extending government beyond the constitutionally defined limits. Then each side argues about how they don't like the cuts and/or spending that was pushed from the other side and we all end up so worked up that we miss the point that the government should not be doing any of this stuff.

Re:Umm, both houses are (D) - cuts are from congre

[afidel (530433)]

Hmm, government has basically always funded basic science research, whether that be a strong central government or the local lord. There isn't a huge amount of incentive for businesses to fund basic science research as it infrequently leads to a positive ROI in the nearterm. That doesn't mean that there isn't a societal good from basic science research, the last 100 years of technological advances are proof to the contrary, but the private sector just doesn't have the right conditions to do it so the only place left are private foundations and government and private foundations don't have nearly the resources to do it (I guess you can argue that the foundations would have more resources if the government took less but I don't buy it).

Re:Taxes

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's not an embarrassment for the DoE, it's an embarrassment for the Bush Administration and the Republican party in general- despite driving this country's yearly deficit deeper and deeper and pushing our total debt to record levels, they can't even fund worthwhile projects with it.

I'm no fan of the Bushies, but if you dislike budget cuts, it's important to understand where they come from. Congress determines the budget. That is their prime function.

The administration asked for increased funding for the DOE Office of Science. Congress instead slashed its budget --- all while fully funding Bush's multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq.

When Congress cuts the budget, there's nothing the administration can do.

If the Democrats in Congress really wanted to end the war in Iraq, they could do it tomorrow by revoking its funding. But why would they end it, when it's their best polling issue?

Sometimes, Democracy just plain sucks.

Re:Taxes

[bondsbw (888959)]

Democracy? Since when is America a democracy?

The problem is that America is not a democracy, and is nothing close. It is virtually guaranteed that:

• Just under half of Americans do not agree with most of the ideas from their elected representatives
• Just over half of Americans (the rest) probably don't agree with most of the ideas from their elected representative, but more than the ideas of other candidates
• Since our representatives disagree with us for the most part, they probably don't care what we think and listen more to money and lobbyists.

So, because of this "republic" two-party system, we're screwed. We have no real voice.

Re:No, this is what's great about the US

[Iguanadon (1173453)]

Yes, it's awesome that there are extremely generous rich people in the US, however, that person who donated $5 million dollars won't see any sort of personal return on it. You know who will though? Everyone else. No matter how indirect, basic research benefits everyone. Better products are created, new jobs are created, society as a whole advances. Why shouldn't the government fund it?

And before someone says it, corporations have no incentive to do basic research, there is no profit motivation for them to do it. Try telling GE 100 years ago to do basic atomic research, at that time there were no known applications for that research. However, after government funded nuclear research, GE now has a nuclear energy division, making a developing better nuclear reactors.

Re:No, this is what's great about the US

[timeOday (582209)]

The government did not need to forcibly confiscate the $5 million dollars from innocent taxpayers against their will.

We don't need to force libertarians to pay for anything against their will. Instead, simply require them to pay a licensing fee if they choose to use any technology they did not personally invent. Such as plastic, semiconductors, cloth, agriculture... you get my drift. After all, we can't let them freeload on thousands of years of cultural development can we? They are strong individuals and wouldn't want to rely on others. Let them live in caves and wear animal skins so they don't owe anything to anybody who came before.