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Isn't it the perfect solution fallacy? Take a government funding basic research, with some hope there will be profit from this. Take an industry which damages

Isn't it the perfect solution fallacy? Take a government funding basic research, with some hope there will be profit from this. Take an industry which damages public health and funds lies to cover this up. Both have motives beyond curiosity, yet I think that there is at least a chance that the government-funded research is objective.

wpietri 5y ago
If you take it too far, sure. But I'd suggest that the notion of "objective" is itself the idea taken too far. In practice, we all have material interests in the world. I think it's much more useful to think of "objective" not as a binary or a destination that one arrives at. But more a direction, like "up", that one moves in.
- jes 5y ago
  I think David Deutsch has suggested that to be objective is to be sincere in identifying and correcting errors in one’s analysis.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I'm for that, but it's a very subjective definition of objectivity.
fallingknife 5y ago
Well yeah, but industry has funded basic research with some hope there will be profit, and governments have damaged public health and lied to cover it up, so they're basically the same unless you happen to know the motive in a given case.