Funding for Science

Your editorial (April 3) misses the point of the Walker/Gingrich position of our government’s involvement in science. Their policy, as articulated March 8 at the Science Writers Forum in Washington, partially stated is that they are enthusiastically supportive of theoretical scientific research; their problem is government funding of applied (read commercial) research. They contend that this is best left to the public sector.

This brings to mind the billions of dollars poured into the analog HDTV in Japan that turned out to be a massive investment into the wrong technology; an investment that the people of Japan must bear, rather than a prudent and possibly more trepidatious private corporation. The current policy is broke; let’s encourage these two wise gentlemen to fix it.

DON H. WATSON

Corona del Mar