Synopses & Reviews
This compelling book investigates the trends and effects of modern, commercialized academic science.
Synopsis
University science is now entangled with entrepreneurship, and researchers with a commercial interest are caught in an ethical quandary. Science in the Private Interest investigates the trends and effects of modern, commercialized academic science.
Synopsis
Something has changed in the culture and values of academic science over the last quarter-century. University science is now entangled with entrepreneurship, and researchers with a commercial interest are caught in an ethical quandary. How can an academic scientist honor knowledge for its own sake, while also using knowledge as a means to generate wealth? Science in the Private Interest investigates the trends and effects of modern, commercialized academic science. This book dives unhesitatingly into some of modern science's messiest and most urgent questions. How did scientists begin choosing proprietary gain over the pursuit of knowledge? What effects have academic-corporate partnerships had on the quality and integrity of science? And, most importantly, how does this affect the public?
Table of Contents
Introduction -- Tales of the unholy alliance -- University-industry collaborations -- Knowledge as property -- The changing ethos of academic science -- The redemption of federal advisory committees -- Professors incorporated -- Conflicts of interest in science -- A question of bias -- The scientific journals -- The demise of public science-interest science -- Prospects for a new moral sensibility in academia -- Conclusion: reinvesting in public-interest science.