Darwinian Funding Makes Losers Angry
Evolutionists love Darwinism – except when it threatens their funding. Daniel Clery complained in Science1 this week that it means the demise of physics and chemistry in UK universities. “Survival of the fittest” seems to be favoring the departments that provide lucrative careers. The funding shortfall for traditional chemistry and physics is due partly, of course, to the perpetual mismatch between government stinginess and scientists’ insatiable appetites…
But other forces are at work, too. Demand for physics and chemistry classes has been steadily falling as students are lured into more career-specific courses such as sports science, forensic science, and media studies. And the once cozy world of British academia is now a competitive marketplace in which universities must vie with each other for government research money and attract as many students as possible to maintain their income. Some researchers suspect that current funding policies are designed to weed out the weak and concentrate resources in a smaller number of superdepartments. “It’s a Darwinian exercise,” says [Philip] Kocienski [Leeds U. School of Chemistry]. (Emphasis added in all quotes.)
Clery suggests that university departments need to stop competing and start cooperating.
1Daniel Clery, “‘Darwinian’ Funding and the Demise of Physics and Chemistry,” Science, Vol 307, Issue 5710, 668-669, 4 February 2005, [DOI: 10.1126/science.307.5710.668].
Sorry, Charlie, you can’t have it both ways. If the law of the jungle is right for biology, then what is, is right. After all, don’t the physicists say nature selected the universe we were born in? And don’t the chemists say nature selected the building blocks of life? So even if it means philosophical suicide, you can choose your path, but you can’t choose the consequences. You can’t appeal to the nobler motives, because they are illusions in your view, so give it your best shot on the Malthusian dogpile (see 02/03/2005 entry).