Michael Perelman wrote:
Jim asked about the trade-off between science and social
responsibility. The two should march hand in hand, but the question is are there forces separating both of them.
1. I knew more about economic education than scientific training. We
have some excellent scientific people here who can correct me. In the case of young students of economics -- who are trained to think of themselves as scientific -- the technical demands are so extreme that training in the more humanistic parts of economics, such as economic history and even more so the history of economic thought, are falling by the wayside.
2. As universities become more dependent on corporate funding,
students have less opportunity to question corporate interests. Think of the recent case in which a graduate student in Oregon got hammered for questioning forestry practices.
3. Here is a question: what percentage of scientific people are
working directly or indirectly for the military-industrial complex? < me: Points 1 and 2 that economics needs more scientific thinking, not less [though scientistic thinking should be shunned]. Point 3 suggests that science needs more scientific thinking -- and that the problem is the type of society we live in, not science _per se_. We live in a society that corrupts not only science, but economics, religion, ethics, etc. -- Jim Devine / "The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist knows it." -- J. Robert Oppenheimer.
