Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog

Most people know that many polls are flawed, and that the information taken from any given poll is probably unreliable. This week the Globe and Mail provides an excellent example.

The question is: Are social sciences and arts being underfunded?

To answer this in a satisfactory answer, you would need to know the following:

a) What do you consider to be adequate funding?
b) What funding is currently available?

If the answer to b is significantly below a, you should answer “yes”. If not, you should answer “no”. The more philosophic amongst us might wonder if any such broad a topic of academic endeavour can ever truly be adequately funded — there are always more theories to be tested, books to be written, et cetera.

However, if one remains of the practical belief that a reasonable number that would constitute adequate funding can be found, question a must be tackled. One way to go about might be to see what funding level is being requested, and find out what gets dropped as part of the difference between the two numbers.

In any case, it is clearly not a simple question at all, but one that requires some research and reflection. Here are your options on the globe and mail poll:

Yes – they are as important as science and technology
and
No – science and technology is more important

Note the reference to science and technology. What does this have to do with funding for the arts and social sciences? Are science and technology being funded at their expense? Or do they just get more money?

Here the Globe and Mail has decided that you — the responder — need not know any actual facts about the situation. You do not need to know how much the social sciences and arts receive. Or how much they want. Or be given information to make up your own mind on how much they need. It becomes “what do you value Science more than Art?”

A question, of course, aimed to show that the Harper government’s policy (which almost certainly funds science and technology with higher figures — scientific studies, on average, are much more expensive to run) is out of touch and underfunds the arts. What the arts actually need, and whether they are actually underfunded — well, that has no bearing on the answer to the question.

The question — of whether adequate funding exists — can be considered without considering the funding levels for other areas. If the answer is “No”, then other questions might arise, such as where to make up that shortfall, and even “do we really need to fund this adequately.”

By introducing science and technology into the answers, one does not have the option of saying: Yes, I think that the arts and social sciences are adequately funded, but they are no more important than science and technology. They just require less money. If you think it’s adequately funded, you must also think that science is more important.

This is not so. Shame on you Globe and Mail. You should not be so partisan.

(Note: I do not know how well or poorly the arts and social sciences are funded. I cannot answer the Globe and Mail’s question. My mock “answer” above does not necessarily reflect the Big Bad Blog’s opinion).