Monday, January 29, 2024

Resolution

Government must play a role in fostering scientific and technological progress by funding basic research.

For the affirmative:

M. Anthony (Tony) Mills is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Technology, Science, and Energy at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies the federal government’s role in science and innovation and the relationship between scientific expertise and democratic governance. Concurrently a senior fellow at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy and a scholar associate of the Society of Catholic Scientists, Dr. Mills was previously a resident senior fellow at the R Street Institute and an editor for numerous publications. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Atlantis, National Affairs, Issues in Science and Technology, and various peer-reviewed journals. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.

For the negative:

Terence Kealey trained originally in medicine (MB BS/MD University of London) and biochemistry (DPhil/PhD University of Oxford), and between 1988 and 2001 he lectured in clinical biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. Between 2001 and 2014 he was the vice-chancellor (president) of the University of Buckingham. He is also a former research fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington DC. During the 1980s he noted that governments’ cuts in their science budgets only stimulated the private funding of research, which more than compensated for the original cuts, so he concluded that research is not a public good but, rather, a contribution good. Which is why it is damaged by government funding.