Another reason for raising the taxes on corporations and wealth in general.

[JDPriestly]

Thom Hartmann outs Reinhard and Rogoff, the authors of the infamous and inaccurate study advocating government austerity.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022767592

Seems Reinhard and Rogoff are associates and underlings of Pete Peterson, arch-foe of Social Security.

So now you know why "government austerity" means cutting Social Security, meals on wheels and food stamps, but not the FAA or -- just wait, the easy-to-predict next exception to the sequester -- military spending.

Personally, I have had it with think tanks and university seats and college departments, etc. funded by the few like Pete Peterson who are obsessed enough with money to amass enormous amounts of it.

Scholarship, to have any value, to be honest and trustworthy, has to be independent. It has to be free from the influence of corporations and the extremely rich.

Think of the times we have been fooled by "science" that was bought and paid for by someone with a vested interest in the outcome.

Tobacco?

Asbestos? (Science was right but ignored.)

Why are we blissfully using nuclear energy and ignoring the science warning about the dangers of nuclear waste?

And, need I mention oil? Keystone-Pipeline oil? Fracking?

Wine? ( I'm very suspicious of the studies that discuss in detail the good effects of alcoholic beverages and only in small print and few words whisper about their horrible bad effects.)


Plastics? Chemicals? Pesticides? Pharmaceuticals? Food additives? Who funds the studies on them before these products are unleashed on the public, poured into our water and left to disintegrate into our environment?

How can we know which products to trust and which to avoid when the companies that produce the products pay the scientists and scholars who tell us they are safe?

(It isn't that they are all safe. It's that we can't rely on the studies that give them the green light if those studies are prepared by scientists paid, directly or indirectly, by the companies or the shareholders in the companies that produce the products.)

Universities are supposed to be independent communities of scholars. They aren't any more. They are the private fiefdoms of the rich. And because we do not tax wealth enough to pay for higher education for those who need and want it, all who attend our universities and colleges are for their best working years indentured servants of the corporations and wealthy individuals who fund our our educational institutions.

Instead of science and scholarship paid for by rich individuals and their foundations, let's tax the rich. Or rather let's tax large amounts of money wherever it is, whoever has it and let the public via our government pay for scholarship and science.

Scholars, universities and think tanks should be free from the influence of wealthy individuals and corporations.

Our democratically elected government should tax wealth, tax the private individuals who fund their private think tanks and institutes. With that money, our government should commission independent scholars to study our economy, our chemicals, our food and everything else that determines our quality of life and keeps us safe.

It is obvious that corruption in defense spending (think about faulty weapons or flack jackets used in battle) can kill. What we need to realize is that so can corruption in science and scholarship.

Scholars should serve the truth and only the truth. They don't have to always agree amongst themselves. In fact they shouldn't. Their work should be judged by its methodology and honesty, not by outcome.

Above all, scholars and scientists should not be doing the bidding of the money-obsessed, the corporate salesmen or the born-rich. They should be seeking truth. That should be their only motivation.

[Scuba]

1. K&R

[Mnemosyne]

2. Hear, hear! Well stated, JD! Thanks... nt

[Igel]

3. Too much focus on money.

That's hardly the only motivation for corrupt science. Ego, personal agendas, revisiting past wrongs. Lots of motivation for corrupt science "out there."

Sometimes just beating the battle for tenure is enough motivation to commit a lot of fraud. We like to think that researchers try to be objective and admit errors, but the number of studies that are done and the data dumped not because it's provably bad but because it doesn't give the right results is phenomenal.

Then again, money doesn't prove corruption. I watched a grad student dismantle a paper that his PI (funder, grad advisor, friend) had published with the PI's former protege. The paper launched numerous careers. It led to multi-million, multi-year grants at a number of Tier 1 universities. Yet he had no problem standing there and showing it was founded on a fallacy.

And the PI had no problem, a month later, publishing a squib that retracted that original paper. The journal published it on an emergency basis even though it falsified dozens of papers in that very same journal. The cowriter of the paper signed the article, as well, even though it stopped some of his students' dissertations in their track, in some cases a couple of months before defense.

Scholar's work should be judged by its methodology and repeatability, by the transparency of data collection and the comprehensiveness of the release of data. Not by guilt by association, group think, outcome, or even by funding source. Often somebody doing a particular kind of research will apply for funding from a group that is likely to support it.

[JDPriestly]

4. I would be among the first to thank the many, many honest, diligent scholars

who scrutinize their own and others' theories and papers.

But, there are a lot of instances of people writing papers to please their funders.

This is also a commonplace:

Often somebody doing a particular kind of research will apply for funding from a group that is likely to support it.

I am not criticizing all who do research and publish their honestly findings.

What I am criticizing is the fact that too much of the research done today is commissioned (although those who accept the commissions will deny it) by wealthy foundations and individuals who stand to benefit from a predetermined research result.

We have climate change denier crackpots out there who can make up all kinds of stuff although science shows beyond doubt the link between CO2 and the drastic changes that are occurring in our climate.

That smoking cigarettes causes cancer was known way back in the 1940s. Even observant GPs noticed the link. But big corporations stood to lose a lot of money from honest research -- and so either none was done or none was published.

Wealthy individuals like Pete Peterson should not be funding research on topics in which they have a vested interest.