[Peace-discuss] department of defense funding and scientific research

[Chuck Minne]

Somewhere, sometime, I read that 90% of all university scientific research was funded by the defense agencies. While this may not be true, my gut instinct is that it is close. Part of the reason given for this was so we could compete with Japan, where corporate monopolies fund a huge amount of joint research. A similar practice would be illegal in the USA because of anti-trust laws. Nevertheless, the research had to be funded if we as a nation were to be competitive. So it was up to the government to do so. It was felt that that the easiest and quietest way for the government to do this would be thorough the fairly secret methods of the defense department, although the other security agencies also do this. For example, I suspect that there would be next to no nano technology being done without government (defense) funding. Imagine the billions already spent on such research with no even mildly significant commercial payout yet. Who else could afford it? Or be willing to?


"Morton K. Brussel" <brussel at uiuc.edu> wrote:This is a tough call.

I have a son who just got a grant to do some very abstract pure math 
from the NSA (National Security Agency), math which can have no 
conceivable(?) relevance to anything that interests that department. 
When he told me, I was surprised and not quite elated, but it seemed 
innocent enough on the surface. There are many scientists doing pure 
research at the national labs (Los Alamos, Argonne, …) not at all 
related to military or intelligence matters, but in working there, 
they do tend to support those labs and their general missions, i.e., 
which is to support our defense and offense establishment. For 
example, they would tend to be against closing down those labs. In 
other words, once you have a financial stake in the agency you work 
for, it colors your attitude to that agency. And it might color any 
militancy you might wish to engage in against government policies. 
Your grant or your job might then be at risk. Furthermore, there is a 
steering effect from the federal agencies; certain fields are 
supported, others left to languish; it is not innocent. It is not 
hard to conceive that the research you will be doing may have an 
ultimate military application.

Also, I feel that much university academic research is too much in 
bed with the government's policies, and I feel that this makes 
academics more timid than they would be otherwise to speak our and be 
politically active. They could, after all , lose their grants if the 
agencies were displeased with what they had to say.

The government wants and needs to be close to the scientific 
establishment, and they allow scientists to do all sorts of things so 
that they can call on them if/when the need arises. This is part of 
the grand military academic industrial complex so often mentioned.

On the other hand, it all depends on your belief in your own 
independence, and only you can make the decision. It is not for 
others to advise you what to do in your best interest, even if they 
disapprove of these funding agencies (as I do). I can only say that 
if I had a choice—and that is important—, I would go with some grant, 
for example, from the relatively clean NSF rather than an outfit like 
DARPA. But some of my best friends have worked for DARPA, and at the 
beginning of my career, I got my summer salary from, and my research 
was supported by, the Office of Naval Research. One easily get caught 
in the web.

Perhaps in this day and age in the USA, one should not become a 
scientist if you want truly to be free of these moral/economic dilemmas.

Some thoughts.

Mort B.


On May 9, 2005, at 2:38 PM, 
wrote:

> I have a possible research opportunity studying the lateral
> line sensory system in fish, and how it encodes information
> about water currents in the fish's environment.
> Unfortunately, the project is funded by DARPA (Defense
> Advanced Research Projects Agency). It doesn't have any
> weapons related goals. DARPA is presumably funding it for the
> sake of learning how to make artificial sensors that work like
> the fish's lateral line. Does anybody have any thoughts about
> the ethics of engaging in Department of Defense funded research?
> -Paul Patton
> __________________________________________________________________
> Dr. Paul Patton
> spring semster 2005
> Visiting Assistant Professor
> Department of Biology, Williams College
> Williamstown, MA
> phone: (413)-597-3518
>
> Research Scientist
> Beckman Institute Rm 3027 405 N. Mathews St.
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana, Illinois 61801
> work phone: (217)-265-0795 fax: (217)-244-5180
> home phone: (217)-344-5812
> homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ppatton/www/index.html
>
> "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It 
> is the
> source of all true art and science."
> -Albert Einstein
> __________________________________________________________________
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