yppahpeek

Maria Miller, the Culture secretary, said yesterday   that if arts funding councils wanted to avoid funding cuts they should make the case for the economic impact of investing in art. This, in my view, is a terrible way for framing the argument for investing in the arts. A few months ago I wrote a post about science funding . In this I argued that by limiting science funding to projects with a clear commercial benefit over those which seem a bit more ‘blue-sky’, there is a risk that development follows too linear a path and we remain blind to ‘unknown unknowns’. The same idea, I think, applies to the arts – possibly more so. Maria’s comments provide a good case study to talk about framing . In order to help an audience engage with an argument, the message is framed in a way that resonates with the beliefs and prejudices of the audience. Essentially, if a communicator can frame an argument correctly, they are able to effectively communicate with any audience. However, framin...

There's a lot out there. What do we not know we don't know? Why should we bother with science that has no practical application? Since science is funded by a public which is becoming more engaged, why should they fund certain research projects? The debate over blue-skies research is a popular dinner table discussion for scientists and non-scientists alike. I know scientists who think blue-skies research is superfluous and “offers the researchers money to pursue their hobby”, but equally I know non-scientists who see blue-skies, or curiosity-led research as absolutely essential to our progress as a species. NASA is usually mentioned in any half-decent discussion about the importance of blue-skies research because, actually, what was the point of flying to a lump of rock sitting a few hundred-thousand kilometres away from our (mostly comfortable) planet? “Well,” say Defenders of the Blue Sky. “Teflon and Velcro are NASA spinoffs, invented during The Space Race”. Not s...