ISTOCKPHOTO, SNOWLEOPARD1
Today’s researchers are increasingly asked to view their work as an engine of economic growth. Commercialization has emerged as dominant theme in both the advocacy of science and in the grant writing process. But is this push good for science? What damage might the market’s invisible hand do to the scientific process?
Of course, it would be naive to suppose that there was ever a time when the social forces that drive research have been totally pure. Government research funds have often been tethered to very specific policy goals. And university researchers have long been nudged, prodded, and in rare circumstances, conscripted to perform specific tasks—including facilitating economic growth. One of my favorite examples is the development of John Harrison’s marine chronometer watch, a huge ...
