Everyone is constantly reminded of President Eisenhower's warning about the "Military-Industrial Complex" in his farewell address, a good warning, but few remember his equally stark warning about the Scientific Research-Government Complex he emphasized in the same address.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.Ike was a very wise man. I doubt he would be happy looking at our condition today.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Ike was a very wise man. I doubt he would be happy looking at our condition today.
Ike died primarily because he conscientiously followed the misguided nutritional advice of the "experts".
He had a heart attack. The "experts" decided his cholesterol was too high, so they put him on a low-calorie, low-fat diet. His cholesterol went up. So they put him on a lower-calorie, lower-fat diet. And his cholesterol went up more. And so it went. Ike had discipline. He followed the advice he was given to the letter. And that advice killed him.
Since then, our public health functionaries have been working overtime to convince people that the same low-calorie, low-fat approach that killed Eisenhower is what everyone should be doing. And that if a diet that demonstrably increases the risk of heart disease should happen to raise your cholesterol to normal levels, you should start taking statins for the rest of your life, despite their severe side-effects, and the complete lack of evidence that they reduce the risk of a heart in anyone who has never had one.
And this advice advice has killed millions, and constrained millions of others to lives of obesity, chronic illness, and diabetes.
In terms of human cost, the cholesterol hypothesis is by far the greatest mistake in all of human history.
And it has been clear that it was a mistake for decades, now. But there are billion dollar industries that depend on that mistake. And it's very hard to convince a man that he's wrong when his livelihood depends on him being wrong.
That almost certainly wasn’t written by Eisenhower himself. But he had the sand to say it, which is more than I can say for all state-worshipping politicians since.
What did he call the Judicial/law enforcement/prison complex.
The military/industrial has killed more people in other Countries however the JLP complex is the one Americans need to fear as they will use tools supplied by the MI on citizens of the USA
I remember it. We’re living through it now.