Biostitudes selling dodgy data to the highest bidder, scientific frauds fudging figures to publish before they perish,

statistical charlatans pea hacking significant results in the confidence that no one will be checking their work.

Last time on the corporate report, we examined the crisis of science, or more precisely, the crises of science, the replication crisis, the crisis of fraud, the crisis of publication, and the crisis of peer review.

We also explored the shared root of these problems in the rise of big science,

where large-scale capital investments are increasingly a requirement for cutting-edge research.

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 scientific technological elite.

Big science requires big money, either from big corporations or big government.

But as we've already seen, when big corporations are funding the research,

the science is invariably skewed in the interest of the company who is paying for it.

And when big government is funding the research, the science is invariably skewed by political interests, lobbyists, and military contractors.

Even worse, we sometimes get the... lobbyists and military contractors.

Even worse, we sometimes get the ad mixture of the two,

combining Eisenhower's twin nightmare of a military industrial complex

...