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Re: spinoffs +- competing hypotheses

Date sent: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 19:33:48 -0500
From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
Subject: Re: spinoffs +- competing hypotheses
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Send reply to: "phys-l@lists.nau.edu: Forum for Physics Educators"
<PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>

At 01:58 PM 2/22/01 -0400, Tim O'Donnell wrote:
it seems to me that on "big"
projects there have been a lot of spin-offs
that benefit a lot of people.

That argument is over-simplified. Let's not even ask
whether that statement is true or false, because that would
be the wrong question.

Recall our discussion of "cause and effect" a while back.
One cannot meaningfully discuss policy issues (big projects
being the hypothetical cause and spinoffs being the
hypothetical result) without carefully considering the
competing hypotheses.

Even the obvious "null hypothesis" -- just don't spend the
money -- requires scrutiny, because the unspent money would
have resulted in lower taxes and/or lower deficits, plus
whatever results those produced in turn.

Quite a few hypotheses must be considered, such as taking 20
billion dollars from the Apollo project and spending it on
-- better roads and bridges
-- biology research
-- semiconductor research
-- aircraft (not spacecraft) R&D
-- unmanned space exploration
-- and/or quite a number of other things.

Other than road and bridges, the Apoolo project was
spending money on those items, that probably would have
not beeb spent on those items.


If you want to make a spinoff argument, go ahead -- but
please make a correct, honest spinoff argument, weighing
each of the plausible hypotheses.

I don't think you can always do that.
Big projects may make just a small spinoff that becomes
important later. You would never know. And the small
spinoff may never develop on it own and happen many
years later.


=====================

If you make the spinoff argument carefully, I suspect that
you will conclude that the Apollo project was _not_
justifiable in terms of spinoffs.

To understand why the Apollo project was funded ahead of
other, more utilitarian endeavors, I suspect you will have
to account for "national prestige". That may seem silly in
retrospect, and some people thought it was silly at the
time, but a lot of people didn't.

No doubt a lot of the Apollo project was for National
Prestige. I remember those years as a teen. Certaintly
Project physics and PSSC physics came out of that era to
make us competitive agaist the Soviet Union and I
probably am teaching physics today because of it.


When a gorilla hoots and beats his chest, he doesn't bother
to justify it in terms of spinoffs. He does it to
intimidate the rival gorillas. That may not be the world's
most noble reason, but it is a perfectly real and
understandable reason.



Tim O'Donnell
Instructor of Physics and Chemistry
Celina High School
715 East Wayne Street
Celina, Ohio 45822
(419) 586-8300 Ext 1200 or 1201
odonnt@celina.k12.oh.us

"Chance only favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur