Although such a system might have debatable advantages for governments, for running businesses or for organising fetes, it does not lend itself to supporting original research where there should be joy, or at least the most chance of eventual success, in diversity. A further worry is that in any event, the peer-panel members could exaggerate or underplay the reports according to their own bias, whilst luxuriating in the lack of accountability and anonymity of operating in camera.But even in a superhuman, perfect world, decisions taken in this way by an effective scientific soviet, as Horrobin points out, will in any event stifle innovation in the inevitable tendency to meet on the most common ground, the middle. An obvious problem here is that the experts are as likely as not to be competitors of the applicant, and assuming they suffer from the frailties of human nature, might be less than even-handed. These all- important, final decisions are based on the views of several "expert" referees' reports. This central kitty can be as little as 5 per cent of the potential moneys applied for.

These covertly selected peers (who to my mind could have been more fairly chosen on some sort of buggins-turn rota) then decide the allocation of funds from a precious and ever-diminishing pool of cash. With the exception of one charity, the grass-roots scientist has no say in who the peers will be. His article was remarkable not only because it articulated, as do an increasing number of us, the problems with the current "peer review" system of grant applications, but because he offered a solution.Under the current system, 20 or so of our scientific colleagues, our peers, are convened as a committee. Does that mean that the bulk of research funded in the usual way has none of these qualities? For the most part, the research that gets the thumbs-up of the public- sector funding bodies is not so much bad but mediocre and me-too, and it was this that drove Horrobin into print. The collective horror of reviewing panels for any proposal that is out of the ordinary is evidenced by the recent introduction of a scheme by a leading charity for a special grant earmarked for research that is "novel, adventurous and speculative".

And herein lies the problem, at least if the research you propose has not already been carried out, or if you are suggesting a tack that is not merely a variation on an established theme. Where do you turn? The most obvious first stop is the research councils and charities. On top of that is the burden of salary: either you need to add on the costs of paying yourself an adequate wage as a full-time researcher in the perilous position of being "on soft money", or you have to drum it up for someone else because of the teaching and administrative loads that go with university tenure. The story so far: unlike arts academics, we scientists cannot make a move in the laboratory without stratospheric sums to finance consumables, such as chemicals and re-agents, and equipment.

Undeterred, I am spurred on to yet another bout by a daring and constructive article from David Horrobin in a recent issue of the medics' journal, the Lancet (9 November 1996). Regular readers of this column might be wondering why there is such frequent harping about funding - or rather the lack of it - for scientific research. Its terms involve the rate of star formation, the fraction of stars that form planets, the number of planets hospitable to life, the fraction of planets on which life evolves into intelligent beings, the fraction of those capable of interstellar communication, and the time such a civilisation remains detectable.The growing list of exoplanets is providing a clearer idea of the fraction of stars with planets And now we know our solar system is not alone !. Devised by American astronomer Frank Drake, this puts a figure on the likely number of advanced civilisations it our galaxy. Don't hold your breath, however - tentative launch dates are set for about 2010.But while Darwin could provide the firmest evidence that alien life exists, the mere discovery of exoplanets fills in a key element in the equation - more spe-cifically, in Drake's Equation. With this, says Darwin's UK coordinator Alan Penny, "we'll not only be able to detect Earth-mass planets around nearby stars, but take spectra of their atmospheres and look for any oxygen Oxygen can only be produced by life". Darwin, by contrast, has a less ambitious but more practicable aim of looking for simple forms of life such as algae by searching for the key chemical they produce - oxygen.The hardware involved in both the US and European projects centres on a special type of space-based telescope - a 100m-wide interferometer - which will be 50 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope.