alt Hacker NewsI was arguing with a Chilean friend who moved a few years ago to the USA. He was telling me how Chile doesn't do good science. I challenged his claim saying Chile actually had great scientists that were severely underfunded (Chile's investment in science and research is ~0.4% of the GDP versus the OECD average of ~2.7%).
I think it's sort of a big consensus with people that have never been involved in science work, in Chile, that science is sort of a "lazy-man" type of work. Chilean universities put a lot of emphasis in foundational science research. It should be the industry, in my opinion, that helps bridge the gaps between foundational research and applied science. But the major industries in Chile don't need to do that, why put money into R&D when you can already be a billion-dollar industry by exporting rocks. Chile's main export is not actually copper, it's rocks that have copper in them. We (I'm Chilean) export the rocks and buy back the copper cables.
Recently the newly elected president criticized foundational research saying it doesn't "turn into jobs" and instead "ends up in an expensive book abandoned in a library". It really reminded me of my friend's words, it's the attitude of someone that doesn't understand the importance of foundational science.
This research is interesting, although the article is quite technical, and I'm very happy to see the involvement of Chilean scientists in it.
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I had a Chilean coworker who earned his degree in molecular biology while in Chile. He emigrated to the US (sometime in the early-mid 90's) as he claimed there was little opportunity for scientists in Chile. He worked a basic job that paid the bills while he built up a side business exporting appliances secretly stuffed with gun parts. He was able to retire back to Chile on that money.
You described https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
I think some of it ties into incrementalism versus "great man" theory. I believe we dramatically underestimate how much of any new thing is (A) not actually as new as it looks and (B) absolutely required a thousand smaller things like precision screws or pure materials.
> Recently the newly elected president criticized foundational research saying it doesn't "turn into jobs" and instead "ends up in an expensive book abandoned in a library"
Guess what the other far right president of the region says (Argentina's). Makes me sad.
¿Para que inventar nosotros ? Que ellos ya lo inventan. - A Spanish politician in the first years of XX century to a Spanish inventor working with early radios.
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That's actually a bit wild that Chile isn't refining or smelting copper.
Is it because there's not the energy capacity to run smelters? I thought Chili had a pretty abundant energy grid (mostly hydro as I recall).