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Remember, this is mainly pushed by those living by the profit in the public markets and not by individual scientists. I don't believe that this group needs thi

• fleitz 15y ago
  Accidental misleading is somehow better? There's a lot of funding from the public trough and a lot of funding from the private trough, to say that one corrupts less is to misunderstand economics. The private companies have pens, trinkets and buffets, the public companies have the school system, the army, the justice system, FDA, IRS, CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF and the police. If I wanted to mislead and force my will upon doctors I'd certainly take the latter over the former.
  • gruseom 15y ago
    The private companies have pens, trinkets and buffets They have far more than that, which is the whole point of the article.
    • anamax 15y ago
      > They have far more than that, which is the whole point of the article. Anyone who thinks that money is the only, or even most influential, source of corruption doesn't know much about people. People will commit the most horrendous atrocities in the name of "doing good", and that's not the only thing that is far more effective than money.
      • rhizome 15y ago
        Nobody is saying that money is the only or most-influential source of corruption.
        • anamax 15y ago
          They're saying that things will get better if money's role is reduced. That necessarily increases the relative influence of other things. In particular, they're arguing for public money. How many of you look at most govt officials and say "I want that person running my life."?
          • rhizome 15y ago
            Right. Reducing the influence of one (of many) component will reduce the whole thing. It's not a zero-sum game where influence incontrovertibly remains constant with the various factors increasing in response to others' decrease. Influencers will try to maintain a given level of benefit for their efforts, of course, but that doesn't mean that reducing money's role won't have an overall effect at all. This is what you seem to be arguing.
      • leot 15y ago
        This can be compared to the basic distinction between precision and bias. While noisy and variegated individual biases pitted against each other in good-faith debate can have low "precision", the more pernicious problem is bias, which is what emerges where there is a consistent organizing influence pushing people in a particular direction. Indeed, it's amazing that the same people who tout most strongly the power of the invisible hand immediately believe that there are other things "far more effective" when the hand's unchecked subtle and consistent influence has negative consequences. Lastly, the stories of horrendous atrocities caused by misguided-do-gooders are the exceptions that prove the rule -- throughout history, truly horrendous has been the cascade of constant repeated atrocities big and small perpetrated worldwide by people acting in their own (perhaps shortsighted) self-interest at others' expense.
        • anamax 15y ago
          > Lastly, the stories of horrendous atrocities caused by misguided-do-gooders are the exceptions that prove the rule Not at all. Almost every genocide has been initiated by do-gooders. > the cascade of constant repeated atrocities Yes, folks tend to go along, but that's true of everything, good and bad.
          • leot 15y ago
            Surely you're joking. This has to be the most odious of the objectivists' canards. Just because "doing good" was used as a pretense or excuse doesn't mean it was the perpetrator's actual motive. I suppose you also believe that most violent criminals were individuals that had only the best of intentions for their victims. Or that Nazis and Stalinists had little interest in power and influence, which were but side-effects of their selfless altruism. That Pearl Harbor was an act of charity, and that the Gulf Oil Spill was caused by attention to detail and an overabundance of interest in the common good.
            • anamax 15y ago
              > Just because "doing good" was used as a pretense or excuse doesn't mean it was the perpetrator's actual motive. And you know that they were lying because you read their minds.... > I suppose you also believe that most violent criminals were individuals that had only the best of intentions for their victims. Nope. But they don't kill all that many people. > Or that Nazis and Stalinists had little interest in power and influence, Surely you don't believe that people who want to do good have no interest in power and influence. You seem to think that killing lots of people is inconsistent with a desire to do good. You clearly haven't had much experience with fanatics, or even do-gooders. It's easy to convince the latter that the world would be better off if the "right" people were dead.
  • sjwright 15y ago
    > Accidental misleading is somehow better? Yes, because accidents don't have a profit motive.
    • fleitz 15y ago
      I didn't realize "liberal scientists" worked for free, it was always my assumption that people paid them to do this work.
• WalterBright 15y ago
  The Lysenko affair in the old Soviet Union shows that scientific fallacies can be strongly promoted for reasons unrelated to profit.