Thanks for the write-up. Regarding the issue of loss of motivation when scientists work on research they are less intrinsically interested in:
I know of at least one large scale historical experiment which did this. In the Soviet Union, science was reorganized to investigate areas specifically expected to increase social welfare (sadly sometimes the conclusions were predetermined by party cadres). This quote from an overview article seems relevant:
Under the Bolshevik rule, scientists lost much of their autonomy and independence but acquired more social prestige and de facot influence on politically important decision making. The Soviet regime valued science more highly and allocated it a proportionally larger share of the national income than did contemporary governments in economically better developed and more prosperous countries. It strongly opposed the ideology of pure science, promoting instead the ideal of science as potentially usable- even if not always immediately applicable- knowledge about the world.
Thanks! This seems very relevant. I think that my guess before glancing at this would have been that the Soviet science was affected negatively by restricting pure science, but it seems to be much more complicated than I’d naively thought. I’ll definitely look more deeply into this.
Thanks for the write-up. Regarding the issue of loss of motivation when scientists work on research they are less intrinsically interested in:
I know of at least one large scale historical experiment which did this. In the Soviet Union, science was reorganized to investigate areas specifically expected to increase social welfare (sadly sometimes the conclusions were predetermined by party cadres). This quote from an overview article seems relevant:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40207005?seq=8#metadata_info_tab_contents (page 122)
It might be worth looking into how and whether this actually worked to produce good research.
Thanks! This seems very relevant. I think that my guess before glancing at this would have been that the Soviet science was affected negatively by restricting pure science, but it seems to be much more complicated than I’d naively thought. I’ll definitely look more deeply into this.