Posted on 04/14/2020 7:59:22 PM PDT by Biser
For most of the past century, the United States was the pre-eminent nation in science and technology. The evidence for that is beyond dispute: Since 1901, American researchers have won more Nobel prizes in medicine, chemistry, and physics than any other nation. Given our history of discovery, innovation, and success, it is not surprising that across the political landscape Americans consider the funding of scientific research to be both a source of pride and a worthy investment.
Nevertheless, in his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the pursuit of government grants would have a corrupting influence on the scientific community. He feared that while American universities were “historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery,” the pursuit of taxpayer monies would become “a substitute for intellectual curiosity” and lead to “domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment…and the power of money.” Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded and prescient.
My experiences at four research universities and as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fellow taught me that the relentless pursuit of taxpayer funding has eliminated curiosity, basic competence, and scientific integrity in many fields.
Yet, more importantly, training in “science” is now tantamount to grant-writing and learning how to obtain funding. Organized skepticism, critical thinking, and methodological rigor, if present at all, are afterthoughts. Thus, our nation’s institutions no longer perform their role as Eisenhower’s fountainhead of free ideas and discovery. Instead, American universities often produce corrupt, incompetent, or scientifically meaningless research that endangers the public, confounds public policy, and diminishes our nation’s preparedness to meet future challenges.
Nowhere is the intellectual and moral decline more evident than in public health research.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
For the Obama years, public health research equaled:
Muslim outreach
Control control safety studies
Ironic. Tenure was justified as a means of protecting free thought and academic independence. It has devolved into a mechanism of control, exclusivity and sclerotic, rigid behavior.
Computer generated gibberish about ‘conceptual penis’ actually passed review and got published in some liberal arts journals
ACADEMIC (ak-uh-DEM-ik): An individual educated beyond his intelligence who is unable or unwilling to create or provide anything of value to others, who pontificates while hiding out in a college or university and expects to be paid for it, usually from public funds.
The tools are there...but researchers can’t keep their political pre-biases apart from any evidence that might destroy their comfortable world views. That is why science and research is falling apart. The grant money is more important than the findings that might stop the grant money coming in.
And don’t forget we now live in the age of the “media scientist,” with publicity whores like the late Karl Sagan and current luminaries like Neil deGrasse Tyson and phonies like Bill Nye the junk science guy. They exist to push their political agendas.
It’s a spiritual problem. The Catholic Church invented the university system as well as hospitals, ... What percentage of university, college and high school faculty are thankful for the Catholic Church’s invention? Probably low. What percentage of faculty voted for Trump? 8%. Sad. Everyone owes the Catholic Church a big thank you and a major donation and few faculty have what it takes to get into heaven. Sad and pathetic.
“...Nevertheless, in his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the pursuit of government grants would have a corrupting influence on the scientific community. He feared that while American universities were “historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery,” the pursuit of taxpayer monies would become “a substitute for intellectual curiosity” and lead to “domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment…and the power of money.” Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded and prescient...”
I don’t remember his farewell address but I did read “Atlas Shrugged” and the character Dr. Pritchett resembles Dr. Fauci.
And we all remember the untimely demise of Dr. Pritchett.
Death by Xylophone.
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