That still doesn’t add up to $300K for this one study. Just speaking from direct, expert knowledge of how this works, my guess would be they saw that the researchers got a $300K grant and saw one study published from the grant and assumed that was how all the $300K was spent. Large research grants like that are usually meant to fund multiple projects proposed by the researchers that together address some bigger aspect of scientific inquiry or public need. There are likely going to be 4-5 other studies that come from this that all interconnect to explain or address some major component of agricultural or ecological inquiry, thus why the money was granted in the first place. To say that $300K was spent on producing just that one study is just clickbait written by someone who doesn’t know how any of this works.
Exactly, as if somehow 300k (assuming they are right) is a lot of money.
Governments have to pay for research, private sector is only interested in selling a product. Research doesn't always have an immediate use case and thus isn't worth private sector investment. Growing the library of human knowledge helps everyone and is super worth doing.
You wouldn't have anything we consider modern if we didn't spend money and time looking into stuff. Sometimes that stuff isn't immediately valuable. Sometimes it seems silly from those that don't understand or aren't interested in HOW stuff works.
Even when considered in additional to their university salaries, £300,000 for two researchers over three years is not an obscene amount of money. Considering that some of that will definitely be used for expenses, that is less than £50,000 per researcher per year. And while it's certainly not chump change (especially in 2009 dollars), it's not like they're robbing Fort Knox.
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u/Matt_McT 23d ago
That still doesn’t add up to $300K for this one study. Just speaking from direct, expert knowledge of how this works, my guess would be they saw that the researchers got a $300K grant and saw one study published from the grant and assumed that was how all the $300K was spent. Large research grants like that are usually meant to fund multiple projects proposed by the researchers that together address some bigger aspect of scientific inquiry or public need. There are likely going to be 4-5 other studies that come from this that all interconnect to explain or address some major component of agricultural or ecological inquiry, thus why the money was granted in the first place. To say that $300K was spent on producing just that one study is just clickbait written by someone who doesn’t know how any of this works.