Mark writes:
> Denys is apparently unaware of the current NIH conflict of interest scandal
> where agenda-driven corporate funding has corrupted the scientific process.
This has been a concern in the scientific community for quite some time now,
even in sectors of the scientific enterprise that are far removed from
medicine. You can get a sense of this concern from a short excerpt from David
Grinspoon's new book, "Lonely Planets," which btw, let me highly recommend to you.
Grinspoon writes like a poet on a very interesting subject:
=======================================
"Astrobiology may at times have been falsely hyped as a scientific revolution
or a brand-new discipline, but it is a refreshing and encouraging
development. A revolution really is going on -- not a scientific revolution, but a
revolution in the culture of science, one that is healthy for science in a number of
ways.
"First, the biocentric tilt of NASA allows us to come clean about our true
reasons for wanting to explore and understand the cosmos. Questions about life
in the universe have always been behind our exploration of space. We just
haven't always been free or willing to admit it...
"Of equal significance, astrobiology is bringing our space research more into
line with the public's desires for NASA. You could look at this as merely
improved marketing, but NASA administrators are encouraging us to pay more
attention to what people respond to. As well we should. It is your tax dollars that
pay for our science and exploration. We need to avoid [pandering] or [issuing]
near reruns of press releases to boost our ratings, but by focusing on the
question of life we are giving people what they want...
"...Astrobiology's certain radical potential is in the way it bucks two deep
trends in modern science. One is the tendency, in recent decades, for science
(like everything else) to become much more market-driven. Profit is hot. Pure
knowledge is not. An increasing portion of research is corporate-funded, which
often blurs the scientific ethics. Particularly in the biosciences, corporate
support has led to troubling conflicts of interest between scientists'
pursuit of knowledge for the sake of humanity and the pursuit of private gain...
"Swimming against this stream is astrobiology. It is not for profit and can't
pretend otherwise. We explore space for reasons that are romantic and
idealistic. The universe beckons. We want to go because we want to know. With
astrobiology there is no fronting the rationale is practical or the benefits material
-- we do it out of curiosity and longing, to satisfy the human need to know
the cosmos that spawned us. Fancy that: a scientific movement that is justified
on fundamentally spiritual grounds....
"...There may be no turning back. NASA has thrown itself into astrobiology,
and our administrators have let the planetary science community know that we
are to be astrobiologists. We need the biologists now. By making ourselves
dependent on astrobiology we placing a lot of trust in that relationship. This is
no longer a flirtation -- we're committed to an ongoing dance with biology. A
divorce at this time would be messy, embarassing and costly....
"One cool thing about planetology has always been the chance to learn a lot
of different kinds of science. Now this includes biology, too. For this reason
I love going to astrobiology conferences. You never know what you're going to
hear. The official support for astrobiology is making scientists braver in
attempting to bridge disciplines. I say 'attempting' because we're out of
practice at being interdisciplinary, and so there is an aggravating side to it, too.
The enticingly eclectic mixture of disciplines can also be a recipe for
frustration because we don't all speak the same language. All scientific conferences
provide a mixture of fun and exasperation. Astrobiology conferences have more
of both."
=======================================
Wirt Atmar
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