It's fascinating how utterly dominated science is by economics. Even truth itself needs an angle.

The influence of money really does hold back scientific progress and is often specifically used to prevent some truths from being known or to reduce the confidence we have in those truths.

Obviously it takes money to do pretty much anything in our society but it does seem like it has way more influence that is necessary. Greed seems to corrupt everything, and even though we can identify areas where things can be improved nobody seems to be wiling or able to change course.

▲

derektank 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't see any way to get around the fact that science is expensive. Researching the boundaries of human knowledge requires access to rare or novel materials, which requires people to invest time and effort in producing them, which of course requires money. If your research requires access to vats of liquid oxygen, or high powered lasers, or ultra pure chemicals, or 500 pure bred rats, you'll need people working full time to produce those things for you, and they need to be able to put food on their table.

	▲	BrenBarn 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		There's plenty of scientific research being done outside the narrow physical-sciences type of fields you mention. Not all science is expensive in that way.

▲

ytpete 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would think a large part of it is simply the universities want to offer tenure to the most competent researchers. And it's harder to judge whether a researcher who mostly gets null results is doing a good job.

Perhaps this means it really does have to start with journal publications though. If journals value null results, peer reviewers will sharpen their ability to distinguish null but well-run experiments from ones that failed simply due to poor execution. Then employers can use published null results as a positive signal that a researcher is indeed doing good quality work.

▲

pixl97 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean, science has always been in one way or another. All the 'scientists' of olde were either wealthy or given some kind of grant by those that were. Science itself won't be exempt from the freeloader problem either.

Not that I'm saying all science has to economic purposes.

▲

Bluestein 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Even truth itself needs an angle.

"When even truth itself needs an angle ...

... every lie looks like a viable alternative".-

▲

youainti 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Imagine being an economist... You can't get away from it.