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elleng

(130,156 posts)
Sat Mar 15, 2014, 05:47 PM Mar 2014

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science.

Last April, President Obama assembled some of the nation’s most august scientific dignitaries in the East Room of the White House. Joking that his grades in physics made him a dubious candidate for “scientist in chief,” he spoke of using technological innovation “to grow our economy” and unveiled “the next great American project”: a $100 million initiative to probe the mysteries of the human brain.

Along the way, he invoked the government’s leading role in a history of scientific glories, from putting a man on the moon to creating the Internet. The Brain initiative, as he described it, would be a continuation of that grand tradition, an ambitious rebuttal to deep cuts in federal financing for scientific research.

“We can’t afford to miss these opportunities while the rest of the world races ahead,” Mr. Obama said. “We have to seize them. I don’t want the next job-creating discoveries to happen in China or India or Germany. I want them to happen right here.”

Absent from his narrative, though, was the back story, one that underscores a profound change taking place in the way science is paid for and practiced in America. In fact, the government initiative grew out of richly financed private research: A decade before, Paul G. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, had set up a brain science institute in Seattle, to which he donated $500 million, and Fred Kavli, a technology and real estate billionaire, had then established brain institutes at Yale, Columbia and the University of California. Scientists from those philanthropies, in turn, had helped devise the Obama administration’s plan.

American science, long a source of national power and pride, is increasingly becoming a private enterprise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ideas-are-privatizing-american-science.html?hp&_r=0

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Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science. (Original Post) elleng Mar 2014 OP
But commercial science does little primary research and even less big science. longship Mar 2014 #1
Quite right, government elleng Mar 2014 #2
Not so many monks these days. longship Mar 2014 #3
Sorry to hear that. elleng Mar 2014 #4
Lots of lawyers, apparently. ;-) longship Mar 2014 #6
Well there are the Koch brothers, and then there's Oprah. undeterred Mar 2014 #5
Big Oil started buying University staff to do their 'research' for them several years ago. Bill USA Mar 2014 #7
Which might explain the surge in climate doomerism, amongst other things. AverageJoe90 Mar 2014 #8

longship

(40,416 posts)
1. But commercial science does little primary research and even less big science.
Sat Mar 15, 2014, 06:58 PM
Mar 2014

You know, working with fruit flies or zebra fish, pouring over equations on a blackboard just to get a better equation with no certain purpose, building and running the Large Hadron Collider, putting humans on the moon, etc.

There are some things in science which pay back slowly and some things which are so big, no company (which might want to own it) could afford.

Only something the size of government can put humans on the moon in 1969, or build the LHC, or fund the thousands of researchers who toil in academia all over the planet, working on unmarketable primary research which can only open up doors possibly decades later.

No commercial science endeavor can do those things.

longship

(40,416 posts)
3. Not so many monks these days.
Sat Mar 15, 2014, 07:14 PM
Mar 2014

But there used to be plenty in science in the early days. The Jesuits have that reputation, though.

The religious schools are not known for doing much cutting edge things these days. I cannot think of one which is primary research center.

longship

(40,416 posts)
6. Lots of lawyers, apparently. ;-)
Sat Mar 15, 2014, 07:39 PM
Mar 2014

The hard science schools are all either public (Berkeley, U Colorado, U Michigan, etc.) or prestigious secular private schools (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, etc).

I suppose Notre Dame might one of the big religious schools. I wonder how many Nobels they have there.

I keep up on science but I suppose there are some religious schools doing some interesting stuff, but it doesn't seem to hit the science news too often.

I am sorry to hear that too. But I am not surprised.

undeterred

(34,658 posts)
5. Well there are the Koch brothers, and then there's Oprah.
Sat Mar 15, 2014, 07:35 PM
Mar 2014

I don't expect the billionaires are getting into the gory details, just the values.

And most of the billionaires lose sight of values. Unfortunately some of them are most interested in buying whole states and political parties or individual representatives.

Bill USA

(6,436 posts)
7. Big Oil started buying University staff to do their 'research' for them several years ago.
Sun Mar 16, 2014, 03:52 PM
Mar 2014

... can oil industry giants with their concerns for their business and related profits be trusted to fund unbiased research?

Big Oil Buys Berkeley, Big Oil Goes to College, California's Love Affair with Big Oil
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101688227

 

AverageJoe90

(10,745 posts)
8. Which might explain the surge in climate doomerism, amongst other things.
Sun Mar 16, 2014, 07:42 PM
Mar 2014

There's been some serious issues in general with the privatization of science(privacy issues, anyone?), but based on my observations, I feel that climate science has been one of the most adversely affected by such. While denial, thankfully, has been declining for years now, it's opposite number, doomerism, has seemed to taken a huge surge in recent years, with outlandish predictions becoming more and more prominent with every passing year, even as the genuine evidence points in a different, or less pessimistic, direction.

I don't doubt that the IPCC has had it's small faults from time to time; humans, even the smartest ones, aren't totally perfect, but apart from a few exceptions, they have largely been proven to be more on track than the extreme pessimists or even the rosiest of optimists.

Of course, this is a problem with more than just climate science, but there we are.....

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