Malcolm Mccallum wrote: > if PHDs' activities were primarily profit driven, then they > would be found in corporations paying much better than > the low pay (often less than 45K/yr) found at most > universities upon graduation. Despite this, > graduates in environmentally relevant fields seek > academic posts viewed as most prestigious. These > facts seem to fly in the face of the entire idea that > scientific opinions are in some way driven by the > availability of funds.
Malcolm, I'll try to explain why I think Global Warming has been a financial windfall issue for ecologists in the sense that it has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding to create / maintain thousands of new environmental science related jobs. In recent decades our universities have been cranking out thousands of new graduates in the environmental science related fields. Most of these graduates, like you said, "seek academic posts". "Academic posts" = jobs in our government owned institutions (e.g. universities) & agencies (EPA, NOAA, USFWS, etc). What determines the number of available environmental science related jobs in our government institutions & agencies? Answer: the availability of funds. What inspired Congress and foundations to award all this new funding in recent decades? Answer: a consensus of scientific opinion that certain emerging environmental issues (e.g. ozone depletion, global warming, etc) must be immediately addressed (via funding researchers who work at the government institutions & agencies) to avert serious environmental consequences. In this way, it appears to me that scientific opinions are substantially influenced by the availability of funds. Paul Cherubini El Dorado, Calif.
