
Is Money Corrupting Research? - bpolania
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/opinion/is-money-corrupting-research.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
======
Fomite
Disclaimer: I have done privately funded research.

I'd say the answer is likely 'yes' \- even for those who are trying to be
conscious about it, there's a desire for things to work, to make
people...well...happy. No one is going to be really excited to know their drug
is shit. I've heard private industry researchers talk about this, even in
companies that make an effort to shield research from finances - you don't
want to let the team down.

On the other hand, you know what else corrupts research? Wondering where the
funding for your soft money lab is going to come from. How you're going to pay
your grad students, technicians, etc.

Research costs money, and the government has been providing less and less of
it. The gap has to be made up somewhere.

~~~
dluan
I'm going to argue that direct public funding is the best way, and by that I
mean the historical analogy of direct patronage or crowdfunding research today
(e.g. experiment.com).

Today's 'big science' grant funding model is so far removed from the average
citizen or constituent, that by the time they see or feel the impact, it's
hardly recognizable anymore. Because it's behind paywalls, or is too
technical, or locked in IP, or anti-collaboration.

What we need to solve this problem is a direct connection with research and
science. If you were motivated to go out and seek an answer for yourself, then
perhaps you'd be less likely to lean on witnesses, testimony, or experts that
you don't understand. The reality is that before the internet, people never
really had that ability to go out and seek the truth for themselves. And I
mean 'Truth' with a capital T, within significance, reproducible, and
transparent.

At least that's best thing short of everyone becoming a scientist, or doing
science independently.

~~~
weland
> I'm going to argue that direct public funding is the best way, and by that I
> mean the historical analogy of direct patronage or crowdfunding research
> today (e.g. experiment.com).

Sadly, you'll be hard-pressed to do direct public funding in anything that is
not publicly-attractive. You'll get a gazillion bazillion dollars for research
on canabinoids, and barely a dime on some boring ray-bending materials
research problem that will eventually turn out to be easy to integrate on an
organic substrate, opening the way for silicon-on-organic optoelectronic
devices.

The "average citizen or constituent" has a level of scientific education that
would prove at least as, if not more toxic than commercial interests. The
current (absolutely terrible!) grant funding model is indeed too technical for
the "average citizen or constituent"; _a frickin ' k-12 textbook is too
technical for the average citizen_, of course high-level research is too
technical! That's why it's high-level!

> If you were motivated to go out and seek an answer for yourself, then
> perhaps you'd be less likely to lean on witnesses, testimony, or experts
> that you don't understand.

That's how we ended up with the anti-vaccines craze. People are motivated to
go out and seek an answer for themselves, but they're also lazy and seek
comforting answers.

~~~
dandelion_lover
> Sadly, you'll be hard-pressed to do direct public funding in anything that
> is not publicly-attractive.

I think this problem can be solved exactly as it is solved in academia. Since
technical things are indeed too technical, even many researches do not
understand the precise value of a particular research. And this is why a
commissions are created and peer-review is used. So the money from ordinary
people should go to this commissions instead.

Upd: of course such a commission should be able to explain/promote the
corresponding research to the public. This will be their work, too.

------
dluan
I'd say this article is more along the lines "Is money corrupting politics?",
especially as the outcomes of research in this context is usually are aimed at
policy (or rather, justifying policy to the masses).

If you want to tackle the shame that is using science as a populist tool for
denialism, that you are allowed to conjure up an expert witness for any
contrarian point of view or agenda, then you must tackle this problem head on.
Front and center of this is the congressional ban on gun research.

Probably the first step would be to change the way we present data and facts
to policy-makers in a more sophisticated way, e.g. shorter review periods, or
being able to democratically control those who sit on these committees. Or
better, have more knowledgeable people there in the first place. Something
something, series of tubes
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes)).

~~~
marcelsalathe
Great points Denny. Btw, have you thought about soliciting gun research on
experiment.com?

~~~
dluan
[https://experiment.com/projects/gun-control-research-
project](https://experiment.com/projects/gun-control-research-project)

------
ThomPete
I Danish there is an expression called "grundforskning" (fundamental
research).

It's research done to create new knowledge but without any specific
application in mind.

It's the foundation of future applied technologies just like quantum mechanics
was for the laser.

When the government stop putting money into "fundamental research" it hurts
everyones ability to maybe come up with revolutionary solutions for problems
in the future.

Integral Research used to give their researchers a decade to find a way to
make their research applicable I remember in the beginning of the zeroes it
was down to a 3 years or something like that.

The question we need to ask ourselves is not whether it's corrupting research
but weather it's corrupting our future.

------
Fede_V
Credible research institutions have no problems publishing white papers or
research reports discussing their own research. For example, Microsoft
Research is fully financed by Microsoft, but they have a sterling academic
reputation which they've earned by doing top tier independent research.

On the flipside, absolutely nobody will believe research coming out from Shell
that says that climate change concerns are overblown, or by Philip Morris that
dismisses the health harms of smoking. This is why when energy companies want
to contest research funding, they attempt to buy out credible scientists and
ask them to speak in their own name:
[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpage...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange)

------
tracker1
"Should congressional testimony and expert witnesses be banned and private
funding of research prohibited? Eliminating private funding will leave
research completely in public funding’s hands. It will not eliminate the bias;
it will simply tilt it in the direction of the government."

This is definitely a fact.. look how long it took for the lipid theory to be
seriously challenged... years of research in support of what the government
would fund. The food pyrimid is probably the best example of the results of
this.

As long as business and politics are so intertwined, putting government in
charge isn't a viable solution in and of itself. It would be nice to see some
efforts put towards pure/directed research... Unfortunately that's a hard sell
to a lot of people who simply don't see the value.

------
smanzer
I remember being interviewed randomly on the street by local TV news for a
"student's opinion" on Berkeley's Energy Biosciences Institute, which was
funded by BP. This was during Deepwater Horizon, and they were despised as
much here as anywhere. The research seemed pretty useful though, and it's
great to get that kind of funding given how tight grants are these days. When
the goal of the corporate funding is to build something, rather than to
"impartially" assess policies on which the corporation has a well-defined
self-interested position, then the process seems less prone to corruption.

Still pretty controversial though now that they are pulling funding:

[http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-
in/2015-...](http://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-
in/2015-02-20/not-so-fast-uc-berkeley-biofuel-research-takes-hit-bp-oil)

------
mobiuscog
I'd argue it's also corrupting the education system, as (definitely in the UK)
Universities only really want to employ people who can 'assist' in being
awarded research grants.

Employ people who will research the correct topics in the correct way to
provide the largest amounts of funding to... continue the cycle.

------
randomsearch
Timely podcast from Stuff You Should Know on lobbying in the USA:

[http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-lobbying-
work...](http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-lobbying-works/)

------
WalterBright
Of course it is, and always has been. And whether the money comes from private
or public sources does not change that. It's why having a free marketplace of
ideas is important.

~~~
grayclhn
There's a pretty big difference between research funding from a private group
that wants support/pr for actions it's already decided to take, and research
funding that's allocated by a group of one's scientific peers. Even if there's
some element of "corruption" in pandering to granting agencies, paying for PR
cover under the guise of research is a lot worse.

------
kriro
The article is only about a fraction of the issue, namely expert
witness/report payments. The title is also a bit silly since money (mostly tax
payer money in case of academics) is also what makes research possible in the
first place. That being said I think it's really hard to be objective if you
get funding from a private source with a certain agenda. There's some people
who can pull it off and I have a lot of respect for them but for me it would
simply be impossible to say with good consciousness that I wasn't influenced
at all.

However government money for research also has issues (I can only talk about
how it works in Germany but it's similar in most of Europe). Namely I think
the practice of research projects is somewhat questionable. You need to build
a consortium of anywhere form 3-10ish partners and write a proposal and hope
it gets accepted. This results in 2-4 year projects that are funded. Sounds
decent enough at first glance but the devil is in the details. First of all it
is not a blind process so I fully expect some institutions/individuals to get
more or less autoaccepted due to name recognition alone. I can't say for sure
but there's humans involved so anything else would surprise me. That
unfortunately adds a political dimension. As a young academic you (and your
professor) rely on a stream of funded projects to keep you employed (there's
also non project-money jobs but these get rarer and rarer and are usually
limited to 50% employment time) which means that your freedom of research is
fairly limited (you can't really publish a paper that isn't related to the
project and go to a conference for example) and more importantly there's a
constant need to reacquire new funding. If I were to guess people spend
anywhere form 20-40% of their time trying to get new projects and not working
on the actual projects they have already secured. And of course this need for
project money gives governments a good way of influencing what research is
being conducted (which is somewhat opposed to the principle of freedom in
research) as only things they offer will get funded.

Lastly, it is surprisingly hard to do research as an individual with no
institutional backing if one doesn't happen to have a good chunk of money set
aside. Access to pay walled stuff (can be circumvented) and the need to travel
to conferences (at least in CS) and depending on your field the need for
costly equipment and access to test subjects. There's some developments in
this regard (citizen research) and I hope it'll get easier because I think
there's quite a few capable people who'd enjoy spending their free time on
research that interests them and publish it when done.

------
dnautics
Can publically funded research also be banned from indirect testimony _? Isn
't there also a conflict of interest if someone doing research on the federal
dime is testifying as an expert to congress, which ostensibly is making
decisions about future funding?

_presumably testimony that unabashedly is hearing about continued funding
(e.g. progress reports) should be OK.

~~~
grayclhn
Probably a decent rule of thumb is: does disclosing the source of funding make
the research conclusion less credible?

In TFA -- yes, to the point that it wasn't fully disclosed.

For publicly funded research -- probably not.

------
rcthompson
Well, they've certainly found an exception to the rule that "if the title is a
question, the answer is no."

~~~
nicklaf
The exception applies to this article too:

[http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-
oli...](http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/is-america-an-oligarchy)

Strangely enough, on the same general topic. Perhaps it's taboo to point out
the obvious when the topic is the corrupting influence of money.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
This is a curious exception to Betteridge's Law.

If the question is 'Is Money Corrupting <thing>?', then the answer is almost
always yes.

~~~
amelius
I guess the answer is always what you don't want it to be :)

------
SQL2219
yes.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/central-
fi...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/central-figure-in-
cdc-vac_b_494303.html)

------
tljr
How can it not.

------
worik
paywalled

------
tarekkurdy
Yes.

~~~
friendzis
Simple yes is not enough - it is much more complex than the article explains.
Private funding is just the tip of the iceberg - private companies want their
own opinions written in scientific manner, with facts taken and hidden to
support that opinion. Is it good or bad? It actually does not matter - it is
that way. But this applies only for paid papers.

There is a whole another category - paid research/engineering projects.
Scientists doing the work expect to publish something. Yet the meat of the
research has to remain hidden for the company investing to hold market
advantage. Result? Technical babble in papers. And it is quite often hard as
hell to find which pieces of the paper are not honest.

Government funding application forms usually include a field labeled something
like "Expected result/outcome". So you cannot just get funding without
certainty of success in one form or another. Which basically results in
funding directed to projects with some preliminary results. And those
preliminary results are funded from another projects and so the cycle goes.
This is very well illustrated in PhD Comics [1].

One of the core reasons behind all of this mess are funding gatekeepers:
private companies know what they want and will pay for that particular output.
Public funding is usually behind some Government Agency where the same set of
people review funding applications and... "known to be well behaving"
(delivering promised results) researchers are much more likely to get funded,
see [1]. Either way, it is next to impossible to do what in my book is actual
research - come up with a new idea and get funding to test whether it has any
grounds at all.

[1]:
[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd050611s.gif](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd050611s.gif)

Edit: fixed link

------
innocentoldguy
Of course it is! If the government, or some other entity, is going to give you
a ton of grant money to prove, let's say, global warming, the options are to
either "prove" it or watch your funding evaporate. What would you choose?

~~~
andygates
That's not even wrong.

Ton of money - lol nope. "To prove" rather than "to investigate" shows a PR-
tainted lack of understanding the method. And if you publish rubbish, it's
your reputation that's shot down when the papers showing how bad it is come
round.

------
GauntletWizard
No. Those with an actual stake in the decisions deserve more of a voice in it
than those who would only vote themselves a full stomach. The US is explicitly
designed that those who are successful in the past (have money) have more of a
voice than those who have failed (haven't money).

~~~
neolefty
First, if success is defined by profit, then where do advocacy for justice,
safety, and protecting the commons fit in? They are just as important for
government to hear about as profit-generating business interests.

Second, that argument sounds like Laissez-Faire economics, where those who
succeed are enabled to succeed more. In practice, it leads to imbalances and
winner-take-all problems:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-
faire#Critiques](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire#Critiques)

On the other hand, excessive regulation can suffocate innovation. So you need
a balance. The debate comes when you try to figure out what the balance should
be. In academia, that balance includes disclosure, peer-review, and openness.
It's far from perfect, but we're working on it.

But this article is mostly about government and policy that is informed by
research, and the serious imbalances, information asymmetries, and lack of
voice of non-business interests.

~~~
GauntletWizard
Justice, Safety, and protecting the commons are perfectly satisfied by the
interests of the wealthy. The absolute first thing that wealth wants is safety
and order, and central to that is a well-functioning police force. Unless
wealth has been entirely monopolized, that will involve a coalition of monied
interests. We're not quite at the point of a private police force, though
we're close, due to the raging ineffectiveness that BLM and similar movements
are pushing for.

