What should science cost?

SebastianG26 Mar 2023 2:01 UTC
2 points
2 comments2 min readPF link

[Excerpt from https://​​davidlang.substack.com/​​p/​​costs
I am not the author. David Lang is.]

My commentary below:

What should science cost?

Hacking the economics of scientific equipment.

David Lang

“Direct costs dictate research directions.

For personnel costs, the influence is straightforward. Grant availability can push more principal investigators to undertake a problem or enable the hiring of additional post-doctoral researchers in a lab.

The costs of tools are just as important, but much more difficult to pin down. Scientific equipment is an essential part of discovery. New technologies are enablers of new ideas and perspectives, and vice versa. Throughout history and across disciplines — from telescopes to microscopes, synchronized clocks to automated genomic sequencers — technology sets the pace for knowledge and insight. It’s personal for scientists, too. Access to cutting-edge tools can make or break careers by enabling priority in experimentation and, in turn, earlier publication.

As with personnel costs, tool costs dictate research directions, whether that’s determining the size of a telescope to build or deciding what kind of mice to use. Cost is the driving factor in deciding which equipment a lab will buy, share, or just leave on their wishlist. Relatedly, costs affect the pace of discovery. For example, the dropping costs of genetic sequencing have created an explosion of new research. When costs go down, we see a direct correlation with scientific output as well as industrial and commercial applications.

Analyzing the cost of tools is harder than just looking up prices on Amazon. The metascientists have approached the issue, but haven’t directly engaged.

Kanjun Qui and Michael Nielsen laid out a metascience vision and perspective for how to improve the social processes of science. It took them two years of research to capture their important argument: we’ve only explored a small fraction of the possible arrangements for doing science. Even amongst their expansive scientific world-building, tools only got a footnote:

“It’s striking that the builder of the first telescope is not remembered by most scientists, but Galileo is. The usual view is: Galileo made the scientific discoveries, but the toolbuilder did not. But they did enable discovery. This is an early example of a pattern that persists to this day. It’s beyond the scope of this essay to delve deeper, but fascinating to think upon.”

Paula Stephen, a leading science economist and author of the book How Economics Shapes Science, came to a similar cliff. Stephan dedicates an entire chapter to tools and materials, but there’s a missing analysis of why they cost so much. Stephen points out that “despite the important role that equipment plays in research, little is known about the degree of competition in the market for equipment.”

That sums up the scientific attitude towards tool-building: forgotten footnotes.

Back to me:

This raises the question of how to do a research program on prices and production processes for essential equipment in, say, biochemistry. Such a program could spin off several businesses and accelerate the number of tools available to younger researchers.

When it comes to FROs, lowering the costs of research could lower their costs significantly and liberate foundational research.

Nonetheless, equipment is likely to remain expensive and I am not optimistic that we can much decrease the price. For one, there is not huge demand pull on prices, and lowering prices through increased production will not stimulate demand. For two, in any science budget of sufficient size, saving even 20% on equipment will not change total costs by a similar percent. Increased supply is probably most helpful for educational reasons, but returns on that front wouldn’t be realized, if at all, for many years.

SebastianG26 Mar 2023 2:01 UTC
2 points
2 comments2 min readPF link