...Prescient words of wisdom from the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address in February 1961......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. 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.... 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 scientific-technological elite...the full address here...
H/T to commenter and blogger P202...
3 comments:
O/T Ayrdale, but this piece of shameless propaganda abut global warming is in today's Herald:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10571517
Saw it KG, and look forward to Chris de Freitas' response.
The call from the green/left of course is to deny him space in the paper, and that call will intensify. The science is settled you see...
CS Lewis referred to "the incubus of reseach". His main beef was with the pointless identification of "gaps" to be filled and the adoption of rather nebulous, not to say, meaningless, scholarly "positions". Naturally enough, most of the guff written about him has followed just such a pattern - a problem I'm trying to remedy!
"Just read!", was his mantra to English students, and his concerns are relevant to the sciences too.
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