In our New Year's Day paper, we found a headline for a commentary by James Lenz breathlessly asking: "Will civilization destroy science?"

Well, as a rule of thumb, civilization makes science possible, so perhaps Prof. Lenz and his headline writer can relax. His real argument is that government must support science, and without it, apparently life itself will stop (given the connection he outlines between medicine and research).

We then learn that his argument is more focused on disrespecting engineering, because it delivers results more quickly — and results that are perhaps more financially tenable — and is therefore a threat to science (notwithstanding the fact that engineering goes nowhere without basic research). And yet, what he despairs of are actually applied science areas (genomics, climate change, cybersecurity, GMOs, autonomous machines) even though his argument is probably more applicable to basic research.

Whether scientific research should be intensively funded by government is probably best analyzed based on a reading of Friederich Hayek, as well as America's founders, who kept our government small by definition. That government can facilitate investigation of nationally important priorities is well established. That it should be responsible for setting a research agenda and driving it — absolutely not.

The reason for funding cuts to our national research program is that we've embarked on an extensive socialist agenda in this country that has made fully half of the population dependent on the other half with extremely expensive programs that are crowding out other priorities.

If the priorities Lenz wants to pursue are valid, they need to be pursued first by deciding whether they are truly national in nature (the answer should be "rarely" outside national defense and security), and then only considered in the context of eliminating our socialist foundations which (a) haven't solved problems but in fact made them worse, and (b) will only lead to the decline of the country.

Why is this so? Because, as Hayek pointed out, socialist decisionmaking limits the potential for innovation and creativity, exactly the elements Lenz would have us pursue. By predeciding our research agenda, we prevent the natural interaction among scientists and engineers that leads to answers to truly difficult questions. The participants in that effort should be as distributed as possible, as much as possible outside the reach of government, and its influence. The answer to these questions cannot lie in a government-set research agenda, just as much as we will never solve problems of personal responsibility (or its lack) with more and more social programs.

By linking this request for a socialist research agenda to the work of Otto and Viola Schmitt, Lenz discounts the Schmitts' extreme level of diligence and personal responsibility in their work. Interestingly, their work started in national security, and then proceeded from there, funded not by the government, but by others. Our scientists, and those who breathlessly fear their demise, should learn from their example, rather than always holding their hand out to the taxpayer.

Chris Powell, of Minneapolis, is a consulting engineer.