Sally & All, I think it is reasonable to be concerned with distorting influences on research and scholarship, whether we find them in the sciences or in the other disciplines. Looking around, the conflicts of interest appear to grow more pushy and more pervasive every day. I'm thinking of cautionary tales like Slaughter and Leslie on Academic Capitalism, or Chris Mooney in "The Republican War on Science", just to name two that other contexts of discussion are constantly bringing to mind.
But the question was: What to do about it? It appears that further inquiry is called for. Jon Sally Ness wrote:
Lastly, JR's solution to the problems of politicization is clearly stated in paragraph 4: scientists must get clear on the meaning of "truth", "objectivity", and similarly important concepts. The benefit of this is identified in paragraph 5: it will prevent scientists from forgetting who they are -- which is not politicians -- and it will enable them to point out why they are best qualified to determine how their scientific work is to be conducted. The logic JR is using here would seem to have a few gaps at this point. How, for example, does getting clear on these concepts lead to preventing the unwanted infiltration of outsiders? and why can't non-scientists get equally clear on these concepts as well (it is not as though their meaning is mysterious to non-scientists) and then be qualified to share in the control of discovery processes? Filling in these gaps constitutes the main work of the rest of the paper. However, it appears that JR at this point is already seeking to convince the scientists in the audience that, if they can, for example, define themselves as "objective" in relation to their subject matter because and only because of how they investigate it, then they can define all those who do not engage in such work as less objective about it or as not objective at all, hence excluding them from legitimate participation in the governance of their inquiry. By the same token, they can define all non-scientists as less truthful, less knowledgeable, less realistic, and so on, on the basis of a relative lack of experience with their brand of scientific inquiry. This does seem to be a pragmatic approach to coping with the alleged invasion, particularly with regard to the role that it assigns to research experience. Perhaps, however, my reading is off the mark?
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