I propose to solve the problem by putting pressure on researchers. Researchers are all about looking at things, and they get all excited about something, but their only response is to look more at those things. It's time to motivate researchers to encourage behavior other than looking more at stuff when you see a problem.

If you can't even begin to identify possible corrective actions, then you have no basis in which to claim there is a possible problem in the first place. Whatever the problem is, poverty, health, environmental destruction - if the problem cannot be addressed than why even bring it up?

Cancer is a good example. It's a problem, it doesn't have a good solution, but we talk about it anyway. Does this explode my theory? No. Because there is no cancer research that is trying to prove that cancer is a problem. We already know that. The only cancer research that goes on is the kind designed to stop cancer. Needless to say, I would not support any research into how cancer is bad, but would support research into how to stop cancer.

In the same way, I would not support research into looking further into how coral reef destruction is real and it's bad, but I would support research into how to slow, stop, and reverse coral reef destruction (without causing lots of other problems, of course).

Downvote me, I don't care.

>>if the problem cannot be addressed than why even bring it up?

Because an engineer (not a research scientist) somewhere, given the right model, and access to the right information, has a basis on which to start working on a solution.

>>Downvote me, I don't care.

You have a very serious misunderstanding about the scientific process and its interaction with other disciplines it seems. Or to put it more bluntly. Cancer is a punishment from God, not a "problem", no investigation warranted, case closed. So let's all get back to devising scientific methods for determining who's a witch, a real problem that can at least be addressed directly and is beneficial to society.

> The only cancer research that goes on is the kind designed > to stop cancer.

That's ludicrous. If solutions were obvious then we would only need engineering. The problem is most of the time "you can't get there from here" - there are still huge swaths of poorly understood territory in fundamental cancer biology. For example how are the natural cell death mechanisms circumvented; how do some cancers hijack the transcription mechanism to promote certain cell growth; how do cancers promote growth of new blood vessels to support their expansion. Of course the goal of the research is to stop cancer, and some of these paths will help, but only some research is directly drug- or treatment-related because there are still too many things we don't know to be able to design effective, targeted treatment

Without exploring/understanding a problem space, how would you propose the formation of solutions occur?

Moreover, you're ignoring that to get corrective action against entrenched financial/economic incentives requires overwhelming proof of a problem and public sympathy.

> If you can't even begin to identify possible corrective actions, then you have no basis in which to claim there is a possible problem in the first place.

Hey guys the house is on fire! Oh wait! I don't see any water around here .. or any other fire retardant materials .. I guess the house isn't on fire after all.

> Downvote me, I don't care.

Well, you should. You're being downvoted for very good reasons. Learn from it, or continue being an ineffective advocate of a flawed theory, the choice is yours.

Act first. Think later. What could possibly go wrong?

Try reading.

OMG There's a comet hurtling toward the Earth. Let's spend more money to model the collision! Will insects survive or just single-celled life? Let's spend millions on computer simulations of the collision itself, answering important questions about geology and previous extinction level events. Let's figure out precisely how bad it will be.

vs

OMG There's a comet hurtling toward the Earth. Let's spend some money developing a plan to mitigate the risk - move the comet out of the way, or destroy it, or in the worst case, prepare an "ark" so that humans can survive, or at least launch some of our most precious info into space (or on the moon) so that a future alien civilization will at least know we existed.

#

Obviously, the first case has no merit.

And once again, by your proposed model to fund science. How are we even going to know there's a comet hurling towards earth ? Gazing out there for neat stuff in the cosmos isn't even a problem in the first place, so it's completely useless by your metric.

>>move the comet out of the way, or destroy it, or in the worst case, prepare an "ark" so that humans can survive"

Those are screenwriting scenarios

>>answering important questions about geology and previous extinction level events. Let's figure out precisely how bad it will be.

The answers to those questions have allowed governments to, in as far as is realistically possible, have scenarios and structures in place, for actual world-wide calamity events.

>>Try reading.

You make some highly unorthodox points. There's nothing wrong with that in itself; in fact, it's welcomed. But when people respond to those points and indicate they have no merit (like how research scientists are in it for their own enrichment), being rude and dismissive is not going to convince anyone you're right; quite the contrary.

Actually we can change orbit of comets/asteroids if we know few years ahead of time that they will impact with Earth - by bombarding object with few hundreds kilograms of "metal spheres" we cause small change in energy of object, causing it to deviate from its orbit quite a bit in the long run.

OMG there's comet hurtling toward Earth. We didn't study the problem enough so now the debris from our nukes is going to take out ten land-locked cities, instead of just coastal cities from the tsunami.

The frustration you're feeling is a side-effect of reality. Complex problems are complex.