Economic policy and "picking winners"

Today in the Science Times section of the NYT there is a good op-ed piece about the underlying rationale for subsidizing basic research. I found it interesting that the discussion about the impact of 'picking winners' here mirrors at least part of the arguments surrounding the practice (for manufacturing firms) in trade policy. Note in this article we are talking about the first best policy of subsidies, while the trade protection recommendation is a second best policy when direct subsidization is not politically or financially feasible (it is much easier to stealthily make a diffuse group of consumers pay the costs). Nevertheless, elements of the intuition are strikingly similar.