3 ms·

So, who is paying the bills?

• MrEfficiency 8y ago
  For Engineers- Capitalism/Customers For Academics- Whoever tells you to run the study. Which one do you think is more often corrupted for centuries at a time?
  • leetcrew 8y ago
    "whoever tells you to run the study" is basically whoever approves the grant, so either a business, the government, or a university (indirectly using the governments money). all three are corruptible in their own ways.
    • MrEfficiency 8y ago
      What I'm saying is that Business is different from Government/University. If a Business is wrong, they go out of business. If a University is wrong, they teach it for the next 10 years. If a Government is wrong, they go forward with the policy until the next regime change. One of these is different from the rest.
      • leetcrew 8y ago
        businesses certainly have a high incentive to get internal research correct. they don't necessarily have the same incentives when it comes to publishing results or funding external research. see tobacco health research performed/funded by tobacco companies. in general i trust businesses a bit more than governments, because I find it easier to dissect their motivations, but either can be greatly incentivised to distort scientific findings.
      • wsy 8y ago
        The issue explained in the original article is that Business funds the studies, it turns out they are wrong, and Business still takes care that the wrong results are disseminated. So I miss how Business being different from University/Government is helpful to even analyze the problem.