[Peace-discuss] Re: [sf-core] FW: Gerald Epstein | What's So Bad About a Banker Brain Drain?

[Morton K. Brussel]

Back to the stone age!
Back to average human lifetimes not exceeding ≈35 years.
Back to having no communication with another except to what you to  
walk to.
Back to ignorance.

Despite useful remarks about transparency (Most university research  
has been completely transparent) and the profits that derive from  
applications of science, I find this comment, especially in the last  
paragraph, astonishing. The bitterness and resentment is misdirected.

--mkb



On Feb 15, 2009, at 3:46 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:

> Scientists Celebrate Dawn of Barack Obama's Age of Reason
> http://www.truthout.org/021509E
> Mark Henderson, The Times: "There was indeed a palpable buzz  
> yesterday in
> the subterranean conference rooms of the two downtown Chicago hotels  
> where
> the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is  
> holding
> its annual meeting. The real excitement, however, has had much less  
> to do
> with Darwin than with the most famous former resident of America's  
> second
> city - Barack Obama."
>
> (My comments) Where have we heard similar expressions before?  Of  
> course,
> the Bush proponents would argue that their term was an age of reason  
> also;
> it just used different rules of evidence and argument, different  
> forms of
> logic and reasoning, and different arguments and understandings.   
> But the
> important and undisclosed part of this is that science as a  
> enterprise and
> industry is a special interest group whose interests are now being  
> served;
> unfortunately, like the financial industry, it is being given  
> stimulus money
> and other funding, permissions to engage in research that was not  
> permitted
> before and in ways that were not allowed previously, and  
> opportunities to
> ear revenues and make profits at public expense for private actors -  
> the
> scientists, the universities and companies that they work for, and the
> investors who get value for risks that the public takes.
>
> If the scientists research is pure research and of some short or  
> long range
> benefit to society and the public so as to justify their public  
> funding and
> right to engage in the research, then why not insist on all  
> copyrights and
> patents related to the research and its findings be public and that  
> private
> persons or companies who are using said research or findings for  
> profit be
> required to pay monthly licensing fees to the government at  
> reasonable and
> fair market value based on the profits generated by the products and
> services which utilize the research and research findings done with  
> public
> money? In addition, if public money is to be spent on scientific  
> research or
> on research done in public facilities or by public employees (i.e.,  
> faculty
> members in public institutions), then that research should be made  
> totally
> and completely transparent with respect to the research itself, the
> findings, the methodologies employed, the contracts between he  
> involved
> parties, and the uses to which the research is being put.
>
> However, I doubt if the new age of reason will not be very similar  
> to the
> older ages of reason where scientists are out for themselves  
> although they
> justify their activities under a clock of public good, and the type of
> research and the benefits of it are determined by the needs and profit
> opportunities of the funding sources (particularly the government  
> whose
> public funding is more times than not for secretive national security,
> defense and policing purposes with other benefits being mostly spin- 
> offs and
> not the main purpose) and those who seek to make financial gain from  
> the
> research.  Very little scientific research these days is being done  
> for
> purely intellectual or academic reasons.

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