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2009-03-11 Home Front: Culture Wars

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Posted by Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 2009-03-11 09:56|| || Front Page|| [2 views ] Top

#1 The worst of this is that this won't stop the embryonic folks from getting all the money.

We've all noted how AGW gets all the grants even though there's lots of competing theories.

I've read something that makes me think that scientists, with the advent of government largess, have become a herd of money grubbers no matter what the branch. To whit from the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin:
String theory has such a dominant position in the academy that it is practically career suicide for young theoretical physicists not to join the field. Even in areas where string theory makes no predictions, like cosmology and particle phenomenology, it is common for researchers to begin talks and papers by asserting a belief that their work will be derivable from string theory sometime in the future

The point that Smolin is making is that, despite string theory being no theory at all but more of a hunch (as put by one of its strongest PROPONENTS, Nobel Laureate David Gross) "We don't know what we are talking about...We are missing perhaps something absolutely fundamental." all the money and all the resources are going to string theory alone and younger scientists are being coerced into touting the party line.

Smolin likens this to an emotional rather than analytical response. I'd say religious, just like the Gaia worshippers.

My point is that all sciences are being corrupted by our grant processes so that none of them are safe and as a result, in this case, the meme of embryonic stem cells will continue to be dominant regardless of things like iPS.

Quotes from the introduction of "The Trouble with Physics" by Lee Smolin.

Posted by AlanC">AlanC 2009-03-11 15:21|| 2009-03-11 15:21|| Front Page Top

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