Axe the British Antarctic Survey?

[biffvernon]

Never mind the two or three idiots on PowerSwitch, it is heartening to read the wonderful comments on the petition website at http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/v ... survey-bas

[RenewableCandy]

As I said, Biff only believes in spending other peoples money

I do, and would willingly pay more. Science spending, and associated taxation, is atop my criteria for voting.

Erm, Dom, just checking but is English your first language?

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Never mind the two or three idiots on PowerSwitch, it is heartening to read the wonderful comments on the petition website at http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/v ... survey-bas

Many comments there seem to be suggesting that somehow the BAS would be lessened if it was merged with the NOC as though the NOC wasn't quite good enough.

Knocking the NOC...bad form.

[clv101]

Many comments there seem to be suggesting that somehow the BAS would be lessened if it was merged with the NOC as though the NOC wasn't quite good enough.

When Proudman was merged with NOC, POL was definitely lessened!

[woodburner]

Perhaps we need an International Ice Station to complement the ISS.

I would be very surprised if there isn't a lot of duplication. In the following list I simplify greatly but the gist is there.

Chemistry & Past Climate - takes ice cores. That work can be subbed out.
Climate Study - gathers climactic data. That work can be subbed out.
EcoSystems - counts penguins, fish & krill. That work can be subbed out.
Ice Sheets - measures ice thickness and is funded by the Europeans.
Polar Oceans - measures oceanic parameters using automatic equipment.
Environmental Change & Evolution - lots of specialist manual data gathering.

The only programme I see there that needs the BAS is the last one. The others could equally be done by single international teams with shared funding and shared data.

I agree that the science needs to be done but I doubt maintaining an expensive quasi-colonial presence in Antarctica is the most cost effective way to do it.

Subcontracting is not the way to get a job done properly. For example the forensic science service (no longer exists). It is now handed over to private organisations whose primary reason for existing is to make profits, not to do a job. Train operators, whose primary reason for existing is to make profits, not provide a railway service. So in that case we have Virgin Trains not stopping at stations in order to get their punctuality bonus, never mind that they fail to pick up passengers, or fail to let them off. They also run trains with a lot of empty seats because the ticket price is so high. But then if they could run empty trains they wouldn't have to stop at all and they could always be on time.

Do I make my point that sub-contracting is often bad news?

[RenewableCandy]

It also means a lot of time and talent spent working at the interface between main party and subcontractor: writing the work specification, monitoring the job, sueing if/when it all goes wrong, etc. It can be an astonishingly inefficient process.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

I didn't mean sub contracting to any old numpty.
I meant sub contracting to other academic enterprises that are in Antarctica anyway and for whom it isn't so far away. Like South Africa or China or Argentina.
Or ones that have a fatter budget like the US.
Or even forming a joint European Antarctic Survey.

One Phd student taking samples with a weather balloon is pretty much the same as another.

[biffvernon]

I meant sub contracting to other academic enterprises... for whom it isn't so far away. Like ... China

That'll be the part of Antarctica that's in the South China Sea then?

[woodburner]

One Phd student taking samples with a weather balloon is pretty much the same as another.

A naive view typical of those of politicians who use such flawed reasoning to cut funding.

With every brain on the job, the collective ability of the groups becomes greater than merely the sum of the parts.

[SleeperService]

One Phd student taking samples with a weather balloon is pretty much the same as another.

A naive view typical of those of politicians who use such flawed reasoning to cut funding.

With every brain on the job, the collective ability of the groups becomes greater than merely the sum of the parts.

Absolutely +1

As I asked above if these 'other' scientists are so much better then how come they didn't spot the hole in the ozone layer??? Either they're not so good or they did find it and kept quiet about it

I really can't see another answer.

[RenewableCandy]

hole in the ozone layer

Classic example of "blue sky" research proving extremely useful

Joking apart, not only is this stuff of general benefit, wanting to find out more about our surroundings and how they work is part of what makes us Alive. I was about to say Human, but some animals investigate things for possible use or for the sheer heck of it.

It is also a sad (and counter-intuitive) fact of life that trying to make research more "efficient" usually kills it. I have just totally failed to find an excellent grauniad/THES/someoneelse op-ed on this, sorry.

[emordnilap]

Just remember the old chestnut 'efficiency is the opposite of resilience'.

[RenewableCandy]

Speaking as an old chestnut who is neither efficient nor resillient, I can but agree

[JohnB]

Discovering things like holes in the ozone layer is bad for business.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

One Phd student taking samples with a weather balloon is pretty much the same as another.

A naive view typical of those of politicians who use such flawed reasoning to cut funding.

With every brain on the job, the collective ability of the groups becomes greater than merely the sum of the parts.

The brains are involved in designing the experiments and analysing the data. the run of the mill data collection doesn't require such expertise.

Genius lies in asking the right questions.