Grassroot funding for science: A good idea?
Summary: Crowdfunding science is a good idea to add additional support to underfunded missions or to enable small projects. It is not a good idea to draw upon the public opinion to fund research projects from scratch. It might appear as if public money is put to good use, but that use is likely to be very inefficient and misdirected and doesn't actually solve any systemic problem. If you must, go occupy Wall Street, vote, and make sure your taxes are put to good use.
I have a few of the same questions as Sabine overall. This despite the fact that I solicited funds in a genotyping project. The key is that if you're going to do crowdfunding/crowdsourcing you have to be clear and precise about the aims. In the abstract I think most people understand that most science fails, but I think ...
