Oh, we do, do we?
And how, pray tell do we know?
Well, whenever you take matter and compress it into a tiny space it turns into a more energetic form. Atoms lose their electrons and the whole thing becomes a plasma. Quarks become less bound and it turns into a quark gluon plasma. The extrapolation of this simple idea shows that when you have a bunch of energy in one tiny place, matter cannot form. This is because it breaks down to simpler and simpler objects the hotter/more energetic the situation. As it cools, particles can form. Theres also some complicated math that supports this idea better, but I'm not going to get into that.
Now, we know that space was small at one point because of the imprint left in the cosmic background radiation. It, combined with hubbles' law shows that the universe is expanding. Overall, this points to a time when all the energy of the universe was concentrated in a tiny space in such a tremedous amount that matter could not form.
Now, I do admit that no one has successfully observed the creation of a universe, so there is a bit of conjecture involved. That being said, there's alot more weight behind this than most people are willing to give it credit. It's just not easy to explain the mathematics and the tests.
These could be tied into coordinated educational and promotional efforts which is actually what I meant to get to. They could also serve as a bridge with commercial ventures--providing them advisement and direction without having to take them over or delegate them to not-always-qualified governments to handle.
Instead of waiting for politicians or generals to decree the next big push, have internationally recognized scientists who could do so.
Okay, I guess I did mis-understand you then. I still say no, though (just not as strongly). The issue here is that the scientific method doesnt work for everything. There is no scientific way to teach people, for instance. So, in the end, you're asking scientific people for non-scientific advice. The only way I could agree would be if the advisors were there to point out what is not scientific.
For example, if some guy does a study on teaching methods and claims his method works better for teaching people, and wants it adopted nation-wide; a scientist could look at it and say, 'you cant draw such conclusions from this data'. I can agree to this, because I think scientists know best where the science stops. There are a good chunk of scientists that dont, of course, but having this additional responsibility will help develop/practice such an essential scientific skill.
Not to mention there's no way you can convince politicians to listen to anyone over what they already think. They'll just find a 'scientist' who agrees with them and make them an advisor.
And any sort of centalized funding for scientific research won't work well either. less people will donate when they dont know where it's going for one. #2, since most projects are underfunded, it stands to reason that if a central group was behind the decision making for which research should be funded, the 'fringe' science you want funded would receive less because the central group would have more authority to give the 'big' projects everything they want. this would also result in alot less macgyyver'n on the main projects, which i think would have numerous implications.
In the end though, it'd be impossible to overhaul the current situation to resemble anything like your idea. I still say 'fix education'. while that is a big request as well, it's much more manageble then attempting to push science into arenas that are traditionally political. For example, if you could manage to teach everyone the true scientific spirit, haven't you accomplished what you envisioned (since everyone is, in effect, a scientist)?
