In an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education <http://chronicle.com/article/The-Water-Next-Time-Professor/235136/>, Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the Flint water crisis, warned that public science is broken.
"I am very concerned about the culture of academia in this country and the perverse incentives that are given to young faculty. The pressures to get funding are just extraordinary. We're all on this hedonistic treadmill -- pursuing funding, pursuing fame, pursuing h-index -- and the idea of science as a public good is being lost ... " Recent scandals relating to this trend include Coca-Cola funded professors who downplayed the link <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/> between diet and obesity, a climate-skeptic professor who described his scientific papers as "deliverables <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate-change-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html>" for corporate funders, and documents obtained by my group US Right to Know that reveal professors working closely with Monsanto to promote GMOs <http://usrtk.org/gmo/our-investigation-of-big-food-and-its-front-groups/> without revealing their ties to Monsanto. Read more about the need to promote public science (sarvajanika vigyan) in the article about Genetically modified (GM) food at http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35366-what-bill-gates-isn-t-telling-you-about-gmos regards Guru IT for Change, Bengaluru www.ITforChange.net -- 1. If a teacher wants to join STF, visit http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Become_a_STF_groups_member 2. For STF training, visit KOER - http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php 4. For Ubuntu 14.04 installation, visit http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Kalpavriksha 4. For doubts on Ubuntu, public software, visit http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions 5. Are you using pirated software? Use Sarvajanika Tantramsha, see http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Why_public_software ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ಇಲಾಖೆಗೆ ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maths & Science STF" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mathssciencestf+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send an email to mathssciencestf@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/mathssciencestf. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
