&quot;I&#x27;m going to argue that direct public funding is the best way, and by that I mean the historical analogy of direct patronage or crowdfunding research today (e.g. experiment.com).&quot;<p>I&#x27;d say there isn&#x27;t a best way. The money will &quot;corrupt&quot;; I scare quote it because when it&#x27;s just an unfixable constant you&#x27;re sort of stacking the cognitive deck calling it &quot;corruption&quot;, which usually implies a conscious choice. Therefore, the best solution is to spread your bets; government funding, corporate funding, crowd funding, startups, that thing YC is about to do, any and every other funding model you can get your hands on.<p>You can stop arguing about &quot;which&quot; is corrupted, because the answer is &quot;all of them&quot;. But hopefully in the crossfire of all the different &quot;corruptions&quot; the truth will emerge. And if it still doesn&#x27;t get out, well, we took our best shot.