Quote Originally Posted by cancerinform View Post
You are damn wrong. If that was so, there would have been no scientific advancement ever. Researchers work on things day and night because they are purely interested in doing so. In fact money and greed is currently destroying the Universities and the research, because only certain type of research is supported. The result is that foreign countries, China or South Korea for example, are going to be ahead soon in a number research areas.
I posted pretty clear records showing 35 years of a for-profit country outperforming interest driving countries, and you have a counter argument of conjecture and speculation. I've been out of academia for 7 years, but my friends who still do research for a living aren't doing it out of interest in or love for the subject matter, and only a small portion of the Ph.D. professors are doing it out of interest (many of them are doing it for grant money, which is an awesome supplement to their mediocre salaries, and they weren't ashamed to admit that).

The day China passes us, it won't be because their scientists care more, it'll be because their government threw money at the problem. Money. Not caring, money. Like most conservatives (I hope), I would suggest that if the solution is spending money to fuel research, the proper avenue is through private corporations spending their profits on research that benefits their products, not widespread taxation and bureaucracy.