Hi Pete,

I am not suggesting that scientists have to starve. But money moving into science has a high positive correlation with the rise of junk science and pseudoscience. Who funded Pasteur, Curie, or Salk?

Today, we have huge money-making machines generating millions of dollars for disease research, yet diseases are not cured. I believe there is no real intent to cure most diseases. Instead, the emphasis has shifted to long-term control which involves creating a life-long client for a drug company. A "market" is created for a company. The March of Dimes nearly put itself out of business when a polio vaccine was created, and all other medical charities keep that in mind, IMO.

> The problem is, I think, that science is somehow
> supposed to exist in some sort of "socialist"
> utopia where information is provided to those who
> need it by those that can provide it. We're all
> supposed to work together to push forward the
> boundaries of human knowledge.

At one time in history in the West, and in almost all non-Western cultures, the smartest people in a society acquired the most knowledge they could and used it for the greater good of their people. It is very sad that that is no longer the case.

In this country, hard-working middle-class and poor people have died because they have been denied medical care that they could not afford. Most people think it won't happend to them, though most likely it will if we don't do something. Many people simply do not care. Most horribly, a great many in the medical professions do not care.


> It can't work both ways. If the market is supposed
> to rule everything from business to welfare and
> health provision then why should science have to
> stay aloof?

Whose says the free market is supposed to rule everything? That will be as much a disaster as having no hope of any free market in any area. We need a balance. That's not a call to work it both ways, it's a call for common sense and compassion. What is science ultimately, if it is not wisdom?