Brainless argument
Sir: Your leading article (`The brainless drain', 23 February) was a risible mixture of propaganda from the Department of Education and Science (the only organisa- tion in the world which believes that UK civil science spending proportionally ex- ceeds that of the US) and fatuous mis- understandings. Researchers do not re- apply for their own salaries; the over- whelming majority are not privately funded; the scientists complaining most loudly are not on temporary contracts.
But most entertainingly feeble-minded of all was the assertion that the Govern- ment should cut science spending because the brain drain signifies a surplus of scien- tists, when even the leader-writer probably knows that it takes ten years to train a scientist and a few hours for him to emigrate. Presumably your leader-writer would be happy if there were no brain drain because we had no scientists.
. the last people whose advice we should heed over research funding are the scientists themselves' he says. Maybe. But not while there are leader-writers about.
A.R. King
Holly Tree Farm, Peatling Magna, Leicestershire
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