Yes, the right to patent is a very valuable privilege. It should be ended.
Harry ****************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 (818) 352-4141 ****************************** -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2011 11:56 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: FW: [Ottawadissenters] 3/15/11 - the truth wears off Arthur wrote: > Forwarding this interesting piece. > >> In today's excerpt - the truth wears off: Further editorial on this piece along with comments from readers here: http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/2010/12/10/new-yorker-are-humans-the-problem-with- the-scientific-method/ A point made there: "The scientific method is flawed because initial results are modified, elaborated or thrown out altogether over time." But that's exactly why the scientific method is a success. This tired argument is made often by antievolutionists, and it's essentially criticizing science because it's not fundamentalist religion with revealed, unchanging truth. And we have to consider the dominance of profit motive in contemporary science, especially pharmacological research: We'll make $500,000,000 if we can make a case, or get some people with unimpeachable credentials to make a case, that our patented molecule cures cancer, makes crazy people manageable or keep you looking nubile past menopause. We'll make ten times that if we can manufacture it and distribute it world-wide in 40 ton lots within a year, before anybody rocks the boat. My words, not those of the author, but you get the idea. Corporate managers don't *care* about science or truth, only about engendering and exploiting belief, however dubious the putative facts may be. Worse, once someone is actually *collecting* the gigabuck revenue stream from a product, vast sums of money can be devoted to putting out fires, viz. to bolstering the preferred "truth" and stamping out heresy. I learned such statistics as I know by tracking my wife through her courses when she went back in mid-career for an advanced degree. Interesting stuff but the "truth emerges from that formulaic 95%" struck me as religious dogma right off, especially as it was applied to social and clinical situations where the underlying mechanisms -- mechanisms at the molecular or neurological level -- remain Terra incognita. This is where and when I learned about "physics envy" in the umm... "softer" sciences. Statistics done on, say, 10^25 molecules can tell us something meaningful about the distribution of kinetic energy of individual molecules given an average temperature. An anti-psychotic drug trial on 1500 patients (order of 10^3 stunningly complex organisms) is a whole 'nother can of worms. Another snippet from the above-referenced article: UPDATE: Not sure what "weak coupling ratio for neutron decay" means, I sent by email to a theoretical physicist prominent in public discussion and who has his eye on large issues, Arizona State U's Lawrence Krauss, the graf [sic] in the New Yorker on that and gravity measurements. Here is a slightly amended rendition of his reply: "The physics references are [deposit scatological bovine expletive here] .... the neutron data have fallen, reflecting under-estimation of errors, but the lower lifetime doesn't change anything having to do with the model of the neutron, which is well understood and robust .... And as for discrepancies with gravity, the deep borehole stuff is interesting but highly suspect. Moreover, all theories conflict with some experiments, because not all experiments are right." / LMK ObFutreWork: Lots of jobs for people with skill in melifluously and euphoniously persuading other people of the truth of things that we wish were true. - Mike -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
