Some folks in Britain want to spend 10 years and millions of dollars to build a computer that goes really, really slow - and I think it's a great idea.

I partly think it's a great idea because it is not Americans spending millions of dollars, the same way I thought the LHC was a terrific idea...for Europe.  People who say you should spend a lot of taxpayer money for 'leadership' in science don't understand that argument when it is applied to military firepower - I don't understand it either way.  In a global world, paying for something does not buy expertise, attaining expertise does.  Silicon Valley was not paid for by taxes, it was paid for by profits, after all.

Darwin took decades to publish while Newton practically wrote his Principia so as not to have to bother answering questions from other physicists. Throughout science history the attitudes and methods of scientists have varied as dramatically as the personalities.

With the rise of government-controlled science over the last five decades, the need to publish in order to get grants has spiked dramatically - and that has meant a more closed-vest approach.  Official publication is where the money is at.

Get your 'false equivalence' disclaimers ready, uber-progressive metropolitan San Francisco is once again leading America in anti-science beliefs.  Unlike something silly and annoying, like acceptance of evolution, progressive anti-science kills people.