Science - Funding

The myth of a universal scientific method glosses over many far-from-pristine realities about the way real scientists really work in the real world. There is no mention, for example, of the time that a modern researcher spends writing grant proposals, kissing up to department heads, corporate donors and government bureaucrats, or engaging in any of the other activities that are necessary to obtain research funding. Although the scientific method acknowledges the possibility of bias on the part of an individual scientist, it does not provide a way of countering the effects of systemwide bias. "In a field where there is active experimentation and open communication among members of the scientific community, the biases of individuals or groups may cancel out, because experimental tests are repeated by different scientists who may have different biases," Wolfs states. But what if different scientists share a common bias? Rather than cancelling it out, they may actually reinforce it...

The most dramatic trend influencing the direction of science during the past century, however, has been its increasing dependence on funding from government and industry. Unlike the "gentleman scientists" of the nineteenth century who enjoyed financial independence that allowed them to explore their personal scientific interests with considerable freedom, today's mainstream scientists are engaged in expensive research that requires the support of wealthy funders. A number of factors have contributed to this reality, from the rise of big government to the militarization of scientific research to the emergence of multinational corporations as important patrons of research.

The Second World War marked an important watershed in the development of these trends, with the demands of wartime production, military intelligence, and political mobilization serving as important precursors to the "military-industrial complex" that emerged during the Cold War of the 1950s. World War II also inaugurated the era of what has become known as "big science." Previously, scientists for the most part had been people who worked alone or with a handful of assistants, pursuing the inquiries that fit their interests and curiosity. It was a less rigorous approach to science than we expect today, but it also allowed more creativity and independence. Physicist Percy Bridgman, whose major work was done before the advent of "big science," recalled that in those days he "felt free to pursue other lines of interest, whether experiment, or theory, or fundamental criticism. ... Another great advantage of working on a small scale is that one gives no hostage to one's own past. If I wake up in the morning with a new idea, the utilization of which involves scrapping elaborate preparations already made, I am free to scrap what I have done and start off on the new and better line. This would not be possible without crippling loss of morale if one were working on a large scale with a complex organization." When World War II made large-scale, applied research a priority, Bridgman said, "The older men, who had previously worked on their own problems in their own laboratories, put up with this as a patriotic necessity, to be tolerated only while they must, and to be escaped from as soon as decent. But the younger men ... had never experienced independent work and did not know what it was like." ...

Outside the scope of military programs per se, a top-down, command-driven rhetoric of science has seeped into many aspects of national life. Billion-dollar foundations and massive government research contracts became commonplace. University professors mastered the intricate rules of grantsmanship and learned to walk the narrow path between consultation and conflict of interest...

The last quarter of the twentieth century saw the commercialization of big science, as the rise of the so-called "knowledge-based" industries-computers, telecommunications and biotechnology-prompted a wide variety of corporate research initiatives... Much of this increase, moreover, took place through corporate partnerships with universities and other academic institutions, blurring the traditional line between private and public research ... declining public funding in many areas of research "left many faculty and university administrators receptive to, indeed, eager for industrial support, and inevitably less critical of the implications for the ownership and control of research."

First reluctantly and then eagerly, universities began to collaborate with commercial ventures in fields such as biotechnology, agriculture, chemical, mining, energy and computer science. "It is now accepted practice for scientists and institutions to profit directly from the results of academic research through various types of commercial ventures," Nelkin observed in her 1984 book. And what was becoming a noteworthy trend back then has since become a defining characteristic of university research. In 1997, U.S. companies spent $1.7 billion on university-based science and engineering research, a fivefold increase from 1977...

"We fear that in our public university, a professor's ability to attract private investment will be more important than academic qualifications, taking away the incentives for scientists to be socially responsible," stated professors Miguel Altieri and Andrew Paul Gutierrez in a letter to the university's alumni magazine. Altieri's academic career has been devoted to the study of "biological control"-the discipline of controlling agricultural pests through means other than pesticides. He noted bitterly that while money from Novartis was pouring in, university funding for biological control research had been eliminated. "For more than 40 years we trained leaders in the world about biological control...A whole theory was established here, because pesticides cause major environmental problems," Altieri said...

Just as military funding for research carried with it a set of obligations that had nothing to do with the pursuit of knowledge, corporate funding has transformed scientific and engineering knowledge into commodities in the new "information economy," giving rise to an elaborate web of interlocking directorates between corporate and academic boardrooms. By the end of the 1990s, the once-independent ivory tower of academia had become "Enterprise U," as schools sought to cash in with licensing and merchandising of school logos and an endless variety of university-industry partnerships and "technology transfers," from business-funded research parks to fee-for-service work such as drug trials carried out on university campuses. Professors, particularly in high-tech fields, were not only allowed but encouraged to moonlight as entrepreneurs in start-up businesses that attempted to convert their laboratory discoveries into commercial products. Just as science had earlier become a handmaiden to the military, now it was becoming a servant of Wall Street...

"More and more we see the career trajectories of scholars, especially of scientists, rise and fall not in relation to their intellectually-judged peer standing, but rather in relation to their skill at selling themselves to those, especially in the biomedical field, who have large sums of money to spend on a well-marketed promise of commercial viability," observed Martin Michaelson, an attorney who has represented Harvard University and a variety of other leading institutions of higher education. "It is a kind of gold rush," Michaelson said at a 1999 symposium sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "More and more we see incentives to hoard, not disseminate, new knowledge; to suppress, not publish, research results; to titillate prospective buyers, rather than to make full disclosure to academic colleagues. And we see today, more than ever before, new science first-generally, very carefully, and thinly-described in the fine print of initial public offerings and SEC filings, rather than in the traditional, fuller loci of academic communication."

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Trust Us We're Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future, Tarcher/Putnam, 2001, chapter 8.

John E. Peck, Keeping Your School Clean of Suits and Spooks: How to Research, Challenge, and Eliminate Military and Corporate Influence on Campus, chapter from Campus Inc. 2000.