The early networks that evolved into the modern Internet were mostly paid for with public funds, and they’re used nowadays mostly to watch cat videos. I don’t see anyone complaining about that /)
When asking these kinds of questions, I always remind myself "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge" [0].
On the other hand, I believe that researching how animals think, behave and "work" in general, is a very important part of being human. They're alive, too, and they defy tons of prejudice we have about them over and over. We need to revise tons of knowledge about animals and other living things, in general.
I think if there's a large corpus of research supporting a hypothesis, any research retrying that hypothesis in an insignificant way can be disqualified from funding. If you challenge the hypothesis, or adding something significant to the dark areas of that hypothesis, you could be funded.
Moreover, if your research fails to prove that hypothesis, or proves the exact opposite, that should be also printed/published somewhere, because failing is equally important in science.
In short, tell us something we don't know in a provable way. That's it. This is what science is.
This is what I think with about your question with my Sysadmin/Researcher/Ph.D. hats combined.
Why are you asking us? I'm not a research scientist/funding expert. There are people whose job it is to decide that, and they decided it was. I trust them to do their jobs, just like they trust me to do my job when they need my services.
Hungarians aren’t brutish optimizers who cut costs and strive for uniformity and blandness; they are not like those philistines that know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Or else they wouldn’t speak Hungarian.
The early networks that evolved into the modern Internet were mostly paid for with public funds, and they’re used nowadays mostly to watch cat videos. I don’t see anyone complaining about that /)
I complain about it frequently, actually, in context of commercial use and the "commons" the Internet is founded on.
These things also don't compare.
Complaining about commercial use is not the same as complaining about the cat videos.
Comparing the advent of the internet with a study on the flexibility and agility of cats in tight spaces isn't exactly apples to apples.
no, it might lead to better surgery robots, search and rescue robots, and countless things that I'm not even capable of imagining.
you are the one comparing apples to oranges - the internet has been around for 50 years and has shown its value - this one has just been published!
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NKFIH, grant # K143077 is not for this study specifically, searching for it reveals a number of studies the same grant supported, such as:
https://figshare.com/articles/media/You_talkin_to_me_Functio...
and
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632072...
That's right. This study falls under the parent grant entitled:
> Péter Pongrácz: The human as a limited resource - a new paradigm to understand social behavior in dogs (Eötvös Loránd University)
When asking these kinds of questions, I always remind myself "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge" [0].
On the other hand, I believe that researching how animals think, behave and "work" in general, is a very important part of being human. They're alive, too, and they defy tons of prejudice we have about them over and over. We need to revise tons of knowledge about animals and other living things, in general.
[0]: https://www.ias.edu/sites/default/files/library/UsefulnessHa...
So what exactly is your criteria for when a study should or should not be publicly funded?
Good question.
I think if there's a large corpus of research supporting a hypothesis, any research retrying that hypothesis in an insignificant way can be disqualified from funding. If you challenge the hypothesis, or adding something significant to the dark areas of that hypothesis, you could be funded.
Moreover, if your research fails to prove that hypothesis, or proves the exact opposite, that should be also printed/published somewhere, because failing is equally important in science.
In short, tell us something we don't know in a provable way. That's it. This is what science is.
This is what I think with about your question with my Sysadmin/Researcher/Ph.D. hats combined.
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Why are you asking us? I'm not a research scientist/funding expert. There are people whose job it is to decide that, and they decided it was. I trust them to do their jobs, just like they trust me to do my job when they need my services.
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This whole thread started because you implied this study was worthless. Would be interested to hear your criteria.
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Hungarians aren’t brutish optimizers who cut costs and strive for uniformity and blandness; they are not like those philistines that know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Or else they wouldn’t speak Hungarian.
Even better that it got published in Cell.
Wait until you learn about something called "the military"