Nearly a half century ago, leaving office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of a "military-industrial complex" that promoted particular new weapons systems and, hence, concomitant budgetary and foreign commitments. In other words, warned the former five star general, selfish professional ambitions and interests can create a false perception of national interest.
The term "military-industrial complex" has become famous. Neuroscientist Michael Egnor reminds us, however, that Ike's farewell address also warned of development of a grants-corrupted "scientific-technological elite."
"Today," President Eisenhower said, "the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded."
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should," he continued, "we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
Today, almost fifty years later, we are seeing the mature fruits of a Government-Foundation- Academia complex in science. It is beginning to appear almost as sinister and corrupt as the military-industrial complex ever was. It is wanton hubris to assert that "science" and the agenda of the Government-Foundation-Academia complex are the same and that to criticize the latter is to be "anti-science." In truth, that kind of smear is just the problem with the system now coming under investigation. Even if man-made global warming is just as bad as we have been told, the case for it is undermined by efforts to suppress data and stigmatize opponents.
The reach of the current ClimateGate scandal is international, embracing not only academia, but also government--from U.S. federal grant making bodies to the U.N., to liberal foundations (that is, most of them), and, of course, much major media. A cover-up of ClimateGate is being attempted by those who want to minimize what has been shown already and to change the subject back to endangered polar bears on ice flows.
The Financial Times publishes a useful wake-up call to those who care about science in the service of sound public policy.
Those who want to demonize dissenters in science will keep up their own alarums, especially as Copenhagen climate talks approach, but they cannot stand the light of scrutiny. (Imagine, scientists afraid of disclosure! How is that posture sustainable?)
What is needed is an objective study of the ideological control of science by government funding agencies, foundations with an axe to grind and the old-boy system that decides tenure and peer review. The hoary rule, "Follow the money," may be most instructive.
Activists with a political/social motive shape grants from foundations. They influence government funding operations and apply de facto ideological tests. Grant-makers (like the National Science Foundation) subtly influence professional bodies and the science faculties of major--then minor--universities, making it clear that if you want to get life-giving grants, you must conform to the "consensus" on one subject or another. Pretty soon, faculties force out tenure candidates who fail to toe the party line. They demand--as science journalist Chris Mooney (The Republican War on Science) has done--that media not publish news reports or opinion articles by scientific dissenters. (To do so would be akin to publishing flat earth stories, they say). You make the "consensus" a social bulwark against the Right, portrayed in cartoonish forms. You raise the specter of the dead hand of Religion to frighten colleagues into conformity. In other words, you politicize science.
