What scientists do is of less immediate use to society than what all of those other professionals do.

I’m an astronomer. My use to society is in helping to express and pursue the human race’s collective driving curiosity about the Universe around us. I also support the ongoing enterprise of exploration, which as a side effect will hopefully help inspire kids to go into technical fields, some of which will be directly useful.

It’s no surprise to me that people who’ve spent as much (or even less) time in school than I did make a lot more money than I do. The truth is, compared to a lot of society, I’m pretty well paid. I’m getting to do what I like, and I can live comfortably. I can’t really complain about it, even though a simple “cost/benefit” analysis comparing my pay to the number of years I spent in school might suggest I mis-spent my school years. Simple money analyses like that don’t motivate most scientists working in the area of basic research.

Lawyers keep those with the money out of jail.

Doctors keep those with the money alive.

Financial analysts help those with the money shift more money away from those with less money, and into their larger gold coin filled vaults (or secret Caymen Island holding company accounts).

Scientist just do everything else… The only problem is that you rarely come face to face with the scientist and realize how valuable they are (not to imply that “financial analysts” are valuable to our actual society at all).

They got paid for the creation of the wealth. But they did still donate it.

However, they didn’t hold on to the wealth and attempt to keep milking it. One could draw a comparison to copyrights. A moderate copyright term allows an artist to be compensated for creating cultural wealth. An extreme or perpetual copyright term allows the artist and his descendants to continue to monopolize and earn money from that wealth.

Science, effective, has a zero copyright term. Yeah, some sicentists end up patenting what they’re doing, but even patents don’t last as long as copyrights do. Copyrights last too long right now, and it seems that it’s only getting worse.

They “earn” prestige, acclaim, respect, for making great discoveries. Also they get to spend their life searching for those discoveries (to be able to do the thing you really want to do all the time is about as wealthy as you can get).

So the statement “Scientists, till recently at least, effectively donated the wealth they created” doesn’t really hold up.

They got a lot of wealth in return for the wealth they created – enough to persuade them to continue, anyway. It just wasn’t all payment in the form of money.

There seems to be a general temptation to analyse the world exclusively in terms of a zero-sum conflict between the haves and the have-nots, in which the only kind of economic relationship is one-way exploitation. We have Marx and others to thank for this popular but misguided misconception.

PK said: “KB, it’s because we collectively let “them” get away with paying us badly. We put up with this because we love what we do. I for one still think I have the best possible job…”

Saying “let them get away…” implies that a theft is being committed.

But isn’t the truth that you are smart enough to be more interested in having a wealth of time to spend doing what you love, instead of a pile of money? I don’t think anyone’s screwing you over! You sound extremely successful measured against what is important to you.

And thank you, Phil, and the rest of you scientists.

I was amused by Graham’s calculation ‘showing’ that someone in his twenties making an excellent wage could become 36 times more productive by workig harder with less bureaucracy, though! It reminds me of a libertarian ‘argument’ that we would be eight times as wealthy if we didn’t pay taxes. At least he didn’t try to defend it. Graham also seems to neglect the obvious fact that many people get rewards greater than their productivity warrants, and that most industries do not permit such wide variation in productivity as creative work (eg. writing, programming) does. But again, an interesting essay despite its flaws.

Then let me thank you for giving your time to increacing the “wealth” of everyone who has even visited Bad Astronomy. I think I speak for every poster here, Thank You Phil.

Anybody with kids knows that true wealth has nothing to do with money.

This subject reminded me of Ray Tomlinson who came up with the @ symbol for connecting two individuals over a computer network. He did not get paid a dime for this breakthrough invention of email. Nevertheless, a wealth of shared information has been speeded up between human to human messaging.

Real wealth, as opposed to piles of paper and metal, comes from the application of knowledge using energy and will.

The scientific method allows us to accumulate knowledge faster and with less energy input than old timey theories that were only testable by application, instead of by prediction. Very inefficient,,,

I would think ANY Republican/Libertarian/Democrat would be most interested in accumulating a wealth of knowledge in the most efficient ( low energy/will input)
manner possible. ID produces no new wealth. Ergo it’s a waste of energy and will,,,

Gary 7

The “gold Rule”

HE WHO HAS THE GOLD MAKES THE RULES

It is here where I have to take a different point of view. One book that changed my way of seeing things was called “intellectual capital”, by Thomas A. Steward.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385483813/sr=8-1/qid=1153400357/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0256835-5467275?ie=UTF8
No idea if this is the same book that I have or a later edition. I have a translation and I have it for some years now.

I do agree that what scientist provide is like a resource from which whealth can be created, but knowing where to get this resource and manage it is just as valuable as the resource itself, if not more.

The answer to KB’s question is: it is like stealing candy from a baby.

Go back a hundred years and tell just someone random: there is a black hole in the center of galaxy M78. He’d probably give a response in physical terms. That might indeed do him good and contribute to his whealth.

Whatever happened to that debate anyway? I haven’t heard much about it recently.

I was discussing something related to your post with a scientist recently. Why are scientists and engineers so low-paid in comparison to the other professions. We don’t spend any less time in school than, say, lawyers, doctors, and financial analysts, and I don’t think people value our work any less. So why the big pay disparity?

@Klaus: It´s not just that – we´ve made so many advances in medicine, especially against epidemics, mainly with hygiene and vaccination.

However, your point of doubling your lifespan is not quite correct. Sure, we live healthier and longer than 100 years ago, but the very low life-expectancy statistic came largely from the very high number of infant mortalities.
These have dropped very deep, thankfully

Ciao,
Klaus

What with Universities wanting to make money from patents and so forth, plus the ever-growing angst about hyperprotective copyright, the notion of donating your wealth is being buried under the notion that “intellectual propert yis property”.

-Rob

Meanwhile, what do you mean, science started 2000 years ago?