Drone pilots have Bank Accounts and Credit Cards Frozen for Exposing U.S Murder

[Sprout]

There's the problem: GMO's are not one and the same as a faceless corporation - one is science that can be utilised for many things, the other has a vested interest to the tune of a few billion dollars.

 

[Vurtual]

Absolutely - but the massive corporation so often skews the science and so when their influence is present, on past performance we can't assume they're trustworthy in their intentions just because they employed scientists. Just look at the dodgy 'science' produced by the pharmaceutical industry (from ben goldacre). There's plenty of 'science' that is as sceptical as i am on these issues - it's about which science gets the expensive platform and the prominent items in the news about the next breakthrough (that you never hear of again (after the share price bump made someone a pile)).

If i thought i could trust the institutions of science to be purely focussed on knowledge and not influenced by money i'd have no worries about this sort of research (that should certainly be the case for university research, but the influence is increasingly felt there too as i understand it). The dubious record of the genetic industry (and the horrors monsanto did before that) is what makes me against this research; not the inherent nature of the research itself - in the world we're in there doesn't seem to be an easy way to separate them though - and often the pure motivation of research for knowledge is pressed into service to help justify the actions of the corporations who care nothing for science in itself.

 

[Sprout]

Any research paper that comes from anywhere, on any matter, is worthless if a quick check of the citations and acknowledgements reveals it to be funded or advised by a non-independent body.

 

[Vurtual]

That's how it's supposed to work, and largely does in the long term. And yet you wouldn't deny the influence i'm talking about exists would you? Ben Goldacre says alot about how science is skewed by industry in Bad Pharma and he's quite hard to argue with (and certainly pro-science). It's that reality i'm talking about which i think exists across other areas, especialy in 'industry' research. I won't give it any sort of free pass just because it has the appearance of science; i do think the wider 'science' will work it out in the long term through the scientific method, but in the meantime there are fortunes to be made (and unfavourable results to be binned).

 

[Sprout]

Of course I agree with separation of genuine research and Industry fueled "studies".
Science is a tool, and tools tend to manipulate it.