Creativity and Private Funding

The experience of the celebrated scientist J. Craig Venter demonstrates what was demonstrated also in the Soviet Union. Here is an except from Sixty Minutes:

Vinter was a rising star at the star at the National Institutes of Health, and just as quickly grew frustrated with the politics and bureaucracy of government science. When the NIH declined to fund some of his unorthodox new ideas, he left and found private investors who would. "I think we have a real problem with how science is funded and done in this country," Venter said. "I mean almost every breakthrough I've been associated with is from having independent money. And once they worked, we can get tons of government money to follow up on it. But, we could never get the money to do the initial experiment."

Although government funding can do a lot of good things, because top of the line creativity is always at least a little unorthodox it needs support from outside governmental bureaucracies.