I'm sorry, but there are lots of bogus points in here. First of all, no one is arguing that the scope or impact of funded science should be anything less than great. The question is who should decide it. It seems the republicans want to take the awarding of scientific grants out of the hands of peer review, preferring that politicians micromanage the appropriation of research grants. Personally, I think that will lead to an end of basic science. Politicians are bound by their sponsors whom for the most part have an interest in public funding of applied rather than basic research.

This particular research is not about ecology or the environment, or some squishy bleeding heart first world problem. It's about the relative value of sexual and asexual reproduction. This particular snail can reproduce in either fashion, and it raises fundamental questions about when and why sexual reproduction would be preferred. It will likely lead to a deeper understanding of the genetic mechanisms that underlie sexual recombination, and how they relate to the success of progeny. Sounds like it's got some scope to me. The competition for grants is so stiff within science today that it's highly improbable that narrow research aims will be awarded. The fundamental question you need to ask yourself is "should basic science be funded, or should the only funding available be for applied science." My answer is an emphatic yes to basic science. It has proven its value beyond all doubt. Further, I personally feel that the applied work should be forced into the private sector as anything with a 5 year pay off will be funded naturally by the market anyway.

You also sing the praises of defense funding. I agree, many great discoveries have been funded by, say, DARPA. However, break it down by dollar spent. Because the money isn't allocated by peer review, but rather the whims of some brass, I personally don't feel it is efficiently allocated. Our impression when dealing with ONR (for example) is that they had absolutely no clue what they were interested in as a research aim, and had no clue what we were actually doing. They just thought we had some cool "high tech looking" stuff. Further, we as researchers didn't really care about their misguided scientific goals. It was sort of an unspoken understanding that we were doing cool stuff, and they had money to burn or else they wouldn't be getting anymore. All the while, the NIH is strapped with many of their institutes floating below a 10% award rate. Most of the reviewers would like to fund, say, 30-40% of the projects. Imagine if a quarter of that defense money was allocated by experts how much more efficiently it would be spent.

>> ^bmacs27:

@kceaton1
It isn't clear that the cause is entirely genetic. There is strong evidence that environmental factors (e.g. in utero hormone exposure) seem to play a role. I think it's safest to say it is somehow neurological in nature, however all neurological development is an extremely complicated interplay of environment and genetic predispositions. The fact is we don't understand the neurological underpinnings of attraction well enough to say how exactly it develops, and therefore what factors contribute.
There is almost certainly a genetic component however.


Well I know this; there is a certain amount of wiggle room for sure otherwise we wouldn't have fetishes galore (that would be your psychology/brain/sub-conscious screwing up your natural instincts). Those can't ALL be necessarily genetic in nature. Yes, I understand the hormone issue, but to me that is an entirely separate subject that doesn't really apply. BUT, it is terribly interesting. But, certain types of visual cortex information and recognition has to start getting built into the system that is linked to your natural predisposition for sexual reproduction--some of that HAS TO happen even while you're In Utero and of course in adolescence. Now what all turns on and changes here is a slight mystery and MAY determine your sexuality, but it was determined a long time ago via genetics when the event would turn on and what would turn on. If it can change, this doesn't matter as it will still fire on cure, it's just that they have to figure it out first. Same thing goes for gender identity disorder. Same issues to some extent, but some things have been even more~enhanced.

It's what you find pleasing to the eye, these things start getting encoded and built into the brain as soon as the brain is being created (atleast the instinctual element, babies like symmetry and hate non-symmetry, usually, that type of encoding). But you're right on the other stuff, I just meant they "may" have something to worry about in the "testing" department in the future; were the U.S. becomes the China of gay children `In Utero`, if you know what I mean--could get ugly and laws may need to be passed...

Hopefully I didn't make things more confusing.
This is PART, JUST PART of the Pandora's Box a test would bring about...

Boooo, he did not answer the mans first question from a-sexual to sexual reproduction.

Ha! You thought I meant sexual reproduction, didn't you.

Man, I avoided that for ages because I thought it was actually something with Jamie Lynn Spears in it.

When in fact it has a bit of actual info for those not in the know about sexual reproduction.