are we funding pointless research?
@chicksdigscars (5483)
July 22, 2011 6:05am CST
a fellow mylotter had a discussion about this, which i commented on, but i've been thinking about it more and more, and wanted to start my own discussion.
we know that our tax's and our national insurance, and any other money we pay to the government goes on our roads, our parks, our street lights, our traffic lights etc.. but a large proportion of this money goes into scientific research. for example, new diabeties medicines, ways to cure, or prolong life while suffering with, cancer, and i suppose this is a good thing, without research we would not have had lazer eye surgery, chomotherapy etc..
but when is it too much? part of my comment to this fellow mylotter, was when you look at beauty products, and the surveys and research that have done, in order to advertise the products, it really is scandalous. you may not think of it, because it's one advert, one advert where 8 out of 10 woman would recommend to a friend, and 92% of a study of 124 women said it gave them smoother skin etc etc etc.. but exactly how much time and money is spent on these, when you consider the vast range of beauty and hair products on the market? surely that money would be better spent when it comes to our personal health?
i do believe it is a good marketing tool, to have these statistics behind the product, but surely we would all believe it more, if it was real peoples views and opinions. for example i watched an advert last night for this mascara, that was meant to give you 10x fuller lashes for a false lash effect. at the end of the add it said 86% of woman would recommend to a friend, and there underneath it, in tiny writing was .. "the models eyelashes have been styled with extensions" .. extensions! so we weren't even seeing what the product actually did! yet we were meant to believe these polls and statistics? i'd much rather log onto a website and read actual reviews!!
we hear all these things like, woman are 9 times more likey to cheat than men. men are 7 times more likey to trip down the stairs than women! single women are 4 times more like to sleep with a man on the first date! like i mean c'mon.. who actually cares about any of this! but there are obviously studies and research going on!! .. why is our money being used to find out facts that common sense would probably tell us, that is if we even cared in the first place?
do you think our tax's and national insurances could be put to better use? and i say this whilst looking at a street light thats been broken for almost 3 months!
2 people like this
4 responses
@raj_gupta (311)
• India
22 Jul 11
Hi.
Well that discussion has definitely got you thinking...isn't it!
I would like to say that your comment and this particular discussion here tell that you are getting caught up between two things that are totally different. Product research are carried out by manufacturers or traders. Your tax payments are not utilized there, though, its the end user only that pays for them in the end but then you can't go to private firms and ask for there expenditure sheets! Its the researches that are carried out at national and international labs by public firms or government funded organisations that are eating up a lot of the budgets.
You people have broken street lights as well......I thought developing countries or under developed countries have trademark over them!
@chicksdigscars (5483)
•
22 Jul 11
broken street lights, potholes, everything lol! oh no i know that, i'm sorta having a rant about both things, pointless research and pointless statistics lol! i'm only merging the two because i know of a medical research company that was doing product testing on the side for a supplement of money even though the medical research company was funded by the government. lol i got so caught up in ranting i forgot to explain this lol!
2 people like this
@chicksdigscars (5483)
•
22 Jul 11
that may be, but when we are paying our taxes out of our hard earned wages every month, we don't expect there to be potholes, broken signs, street lights out, whilst people on benefits are getting more and more money every month, from our taxes! and i'm not saying this with prejudice, my partner is unemployed and claiming benefits and she can't get a job anywhere to save our life, but surely something has to be done to even the score!
1 person likes this
@raj_gupta (311)
• India
22 Jul 11
@ chicksdigscars (first comment) I can understand that. A lot of time when you are not able to get the right words in the right way out, it may rub crowd in a wrong way. Actually you have included the scandalous use of public resources by private firms in to some thing that is planned. We don't plan scandals, they happen to the system to disrupt all the arrangements.
I got all the other points you have made though and agree to them to a certain extent.
@ 3honor I agree to you but still the the researches you mentioned were new and not a topic of general realization!
@ chicksdigscars (second comment) Interestingly enough, your comment reminds me of a lecture by some renowned economist, who while differentiating between India economy and economies of Europe and America said that, in India a family is the caretaker of a person but in other economies the problems are nationalized. That is to say, if someone is unemployed in India, usually his/her family will devise a way out for that person but in UK/US and other places, an unemployed person is the responsibility of the government. I wonder which one is better, but you are surely not happy with your arrangements...are you?
@Cutie18f (9546)
• Philippines
23 Jul 11
Well, research is very important in our lives. Without it, we will stagnate and will never know what will hit us in the future. It is research which has brought us all these wonderful things we are experiencing now.like the internet, etc. I just hope there wouldn't be any waste of funds in researches that are futile or useless.
@chicksdigscars (5483)
•
25 Jul 11
i agree with what your saying.. and some research is completely and utterly life depending! however.. do we really care who is more likely to get fired from a job, a male or female? do we really care what age group is more inclined to binge drink? like seriously? these polls and researches are a load of rubbish that no one cares about, and if you thought hard about it, could probably come up with a common sense answer of your own!
@shaggin (72192)
• United States
22 Jul 11
I do think that there is way to much money spent on research that is just plain unnecessary. I am all for reasearch to find cures for cancer and AIDS and Alzheimers but as far as sending people to the moon and all the reaserch into outer space what is the point. Its just a huge waste of money that could be used to help the homeless people in our country or things like that.
@kaylachan (71589)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
23 Jul 11
In this case, you have to wonder what is actual reasearch, and what isn't. Numbers can be made up... polls placed on websites at no cost to the maker, or the person voting in the poll. It's a number's game. Pure and simple and has been for a long time. No our money is being used to make government officals even more rich while we sit back sweating wondering "will I have the money to pay the rent". Stats are used to bolster an already "soft" ecconomy. Which nine times out of ten it fails.
Our money is not being put to good use. How can we say it is, then turn around and say "If a decision on the debt sealing isn't reached by August 2 there is no gaurntee that social security benifits will be avaible to be sent oout the fallowing day. Which means... bills aren't going to get paid... and that's less money being fed back into the government.
They are arguing on wether or not to raise taxes, or put more cuts in an already struggeling ecconomy, but that doesn't stop news reporters tossing out numbers right and left (probably with no value or information to back it up) Chances are "research studies" aren't actually taking place, and some bored person makes a pie chart making up stats.
@chicksdigscars (5483)
•
25 Jul 11
wow.. i can see where your coming from!! completely. this was brilliant thank you! and i totally get that! they make all these decisions about social security benefit, housing benefit, and all these changes and cutbacks, affect the payments into peoples accounts. for example my partner was off work there for almost a year, she can't find a job at the minute but she was genuinely off due to a back problem from heavy lifting of patients in her last job! .. and her payment dates got changed over that year for housing benefit and social security benefits, about 9 times, and each time, i had to dip into my wage and pay the entire rent bill! even though half of it is meant to come from her housing benefit. i'd to pay the gas, electric, tv license, everything, out of my wage, leaving pracitcally nothing.. so we couldn't even do one big grocery shop, because her money came through in weekly installments. so instead of having the rent paid, and bills paid, and enough money to do a massive grocery shop, and then live week to week on what we had left, we had to live week to week on her money, which was even more expensive, because we couldn't do a big shop we were only able to get a quarter of the things we needed each week, so we had to decide between toilet roll and washing powder one day, and potatoes and vegetables the next.. it was awful!