University Inc. by Washburn, Jennifer
"With the possible exception of business schools, industry penetration into the nations medical schools has been more sweeping than in any other sector of the university". .108
Big Pharma: "..slightly more than a third of the leading authors based at research institutions in Massachusetts had a significant financial interest in their own reports." 108
"...publicly funded science, most of it performed in universities, was a "critical contributor" to the discovery of nearly all of the twenty five most important breakthrough drugs introduced between 1970 and 1995. If university scientists lose their independence, who will perform this path-breaking research and objectively evaluate the safety and effectiveness of drugs already on the market?" 109
More and more companies have the power to initiate and define research protocol..."In this way, industry is slowly changing the direction of academic research, causing it to be far more market driven and less directed toward truly important science." 110
"Journals have devolved into information-laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry." 112
Pharmacia Corp. controlled the data and delivered only the first year to scientists in a two year study..that found it's product produced ulcer complications that were not seen in the first year. 112-3 [must see]
"[In 1998] The NIH [National Institutes of Health] report rebuked the university community for turning its back on the 'gift economy' that traditionally prevailed in academia and replacing it with a new, more profit-oriented conception of knowledge and ideas as private property." 146"
"Historically, of course, one of the central missions of the university was to nurture and protect the information commons, the pool of knowledge and ideas unencumbered by ownership claims that is freely available to researchers and public at large. Like our national parks, timber, and water ressources, this pool of knowledge--much of it funded by U.S. taxpayers--is a crucial part of the public domain. Unfortunately, in recent years, despite the revolution in information technology, the size of the knowledge commons has diminished, as more and more ideas, subject to restrictive patents and licenses, get cordoned off behind high proprietary fences." 146
See "Science in the Private Interest, by Sheldon Krimsky"
Patents give companies monopoly control over the basic building blocks of science: "..the current effort to privatize the knowledge commons "makes the monopolies of the nineteenth-century robber barrons look like penny-ante operations." 148
The reinterpretation of patients based on market ideology has made the human genome, the basic building blocks of our humanity, into a commodity. In such context it is vital that our educational institutions and especially "our nations universities to rededicate themselves to protecting the knowledge commons, so that the basic building blocks of science continue to be freely available for future invention and discovery. Unfortunately, however, the intrusion of a market ideology has caused these institutions to move in precisily the opposite direction." 149
example: in the late 1990's NIH (who had previously criticized this practice) forsaked it's committment to the public domain by filing the first ever patents on anonymous gene fragments, known as "expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Ironically, it was a private firm, Merck & Co. that first rose up to oppose the NIH and its ill-conceived decision to patent such an early-stage genetics information." 149
long term cultural and economic costs: "..waling off of basic, embryonic research behind an exclusive license that isn't absolutely necessary imposes serious, long term costs on the research community--and the broader economy..(see 151 for argument)..Therefore, it is far preferable to place a sizable portion of this non-rival knowledge [knowledge that doesn't operate by a zero-sum game] in the public domain, where it can spur creative competition among scientists and diverse paths of inquiry." 150
Unfortunately, a "growing tendency for universities and their scholars to treat knowledge like a commodity." [what is the root metaphor here?] 151
Grant from the National Institute of Health supported James Thompson while he discovered how to reproduce stem cells, yet the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation WARF got an exceptionally broad patient and gave an exclusive patent to the Geron Corporation..thus producing a monopoly. 151
Response from scientific community: rage: Douglas Melton: "Those conditions would mean that I am the ideal employee of Geron. They don't pay my salary,, they don't pay my benefits, but anything I discover they own..." 152
Although their principle obligation under "Bayh-Dole Act" is to promote utilization, not to maximize financial returns"...most cash-starved universities (because of trickle down ideology) find it impossible not to maximize returns. 156
"A large scale survey by Jerry Thursby and other prominent economists found that university tech transfer officers now list "revenue" as their number one priority--not widespread use of their technology, or even effective commercialization." 156
see p. 159 for professors fighting their Tech transfer offices for the right to "open source" their discoveries. USE INTERNET EXAMPLE AND METAPHOR
Solution: "transfer all publicly financed breakthroughs to a national, non-profit R&D foundation, which would license the research at "arms length" and use teh resulting profits to finance additional public research." 162.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
NYT: Taxes: Paradigm Shift
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-most-us-taxpayers-lose-out-on-fiscal-cliff-deal/2013/01/08/51d24bd8-59c5-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop
The lower tax rates for capital gains and dividends, then, effectively reward offshoring more than work done within the United States, increase economic inequality and deprive the federal government of revenue it will need to support an aging population and meet its other obligations. None of this upsets Republicans, but it would be nice if Democrats realized that these tax breaks undermine everything they stand for.
The lower tax rates for capital gains and dividends, then, effectively reward offshoring more than work done within the United States, increase economic inequality and deprive the federal government of revenue it will need to support an aging population and meet its other obligations. None of this upsets Republicans, but it would be nice if Democrats realized that these tax breaks undermine everything they stand for.
Monday, January 7, 2013
linear vs. organic thinking
http://bigthink.com/e-pur-si-muove/common-misconceptions-about-intelligence-v-education-increases-
Common Misconceptions About Intelligence V: Education Increases Intelligence
Education does not increase your intelligence. It’s the other way around.
A subcategory of the last common misconception about intelligence (“Genes don’t determine intelligence, only the environment does”) is that you can become more intelligent, by reading more books, attending better schools, or receiving more education. It is true that there are strong correlations among these traits. People who read more books are more intelligent; people who attend better schools are more intelligent; and people who attain more education are more intelligent. But the causal order is the opposite of what many people assume. There are associations among these traits, because more intelligent people read more books, attend better schools (partly because their parents are more intelligent and therefore make more money), and receive more education.
Early childhood experiences do affect adult intelligence somewhat, but they mostly function to decrease adult intelligence, not to increase it. Childhood illnesses, injuries, malnutrition and other adverse conditions influence adult intelligence negatively, and these individuals often fail to fulfill their genetic potential. But there are very few childhood experiences that will increase adult intelligence much more than their genes would have inclined them to have.
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Somewhat paradoxically, the wealthier, the safer, and the more egalitarian the nations become, the more (not less) important the genes become in determining adult intelligence. In poor nations, there are many children who grow up ill, injured or malnourished, and these children will decrease the correlation between genes and adult intelligence because they fail to live up to their genetic potential. In wealthy societies like the United States, where very few children now grow up ill and malnourished, the environment is more or less equalized. When the environment becomes equal for all individuals, it ceases to have any effect on human traits. (Statistically, a factor that does not vary between individuals cannot have any effect on an individual outcome. A constant cannot explain a variable; only a variable can explain a variable.) So the more equal the environment between individuals, the more important the influence of genes becomes. If everyone lives up to their genetic potential, then only genes determine their adult outcome. A longitudinal study of Scottish people born in 1921 and 1936 shows that their intelligence does not change much after the age of 11. Their intelligence at Age 11 is very strongly correlated with their intelligence at Age 80.
So contrary to the popular misconception, genes largely (though, even for adults, never completely) determine intelligence. In fact, intelligence is one of the most heritable of all human traits and characteristics. For example, intelligence is just as heritable as height. Everybody knows that tall parents beget tall children, and nobody ever questions the strong influence of genes on height, yet they vehemently deny any influence of genes on intelligence. Nobody ever claims that playing basketball makes you taller just because basketball players are very tall. Yet they claim that education makes you more intelligent just because more educated people are more intelligent.
Follow me on Twitter: @SatoshiKanazawa
Read more about the surprising facts about intelligence, what it is (and what it is not), how it affects you in virtually every sphere of life, and how more intelligent people are different from less intelligent people, in The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn’t Always the Smart One.
Krugman: macroeconomics vs. microeconomics: why the larger economy is not a family
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/opinion/krugman-the-big-fail.html?hpw&_r=0
"For an economy is not like a household. A family can decide to spend less and try to earn more. But in the economy as a whole, spending and earning go together: my spending is your income; your spending is my income. If everyone tries to slash spending at the same time, incomes will fall — and unemployment will soar."
"For an economy is not like a household. A family can decide to spend less and try to earn more. But in the economy as a whole, spending and earning go together: my spending is your income; your spending is my income. If everyone tries to slash spending at the same time, incomes will fall — and unemployment will soar."
Friday, January 4, 2013
Saunders and Death
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magazine/george-saunders-just-wrote-the-best-book-youll-read-this-year.html?pagewanted=4&ref=general&src=me&_r=0
“In terms of dramatic structure, I don’t really buy the humanist verities anymore,” he said. “I mean, I buy them, they’re a subset of what’s true. But they’re not sufficient. They wouldn’t do much for me on my deathbed. Look at it another way. We’re here. We’re nice guys. We’re doing O.K. But we know that in X number of years, we won’t be here, and between now and then something unpleasant is gonna happen, or at least potentially unpleasant and scary. And when we turn to try and understand that, I don’t really think the humanist verities are quite enough. Because that would be crazy if they were. It would be so weird if we knew just as much as we needed to know to answer all the questions of the universe. Wouldn’t that be freaky? Whereas the probability is high that there is a vast reality that we have no way to perceive, that’s actually bearing down on us now and influencing everything. The idea of saying, ‘Well, we can’t see it, therefore we don’t need to see it,’ seems really weird to me.”
But it’s a mistake, he added, to think of writing programs in terms that are “too narrowly careerist. . . . Even for those thousands of young people who don’t get something out there, the process is still a noble one — the process of trying to say something, of working through craft issues and the worldview issues and the ego issues — all of this is character-building, and, God forbid, everything we do should have concrete career results. I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.”
“In terms of dramatic structure, I don’t really buy the humanist verities anymore,” he said. “I mean, I buy them, they’re a subset of what’s true. But they’re not sufficient. They wouldn’t do much for me on my deathbed. Look at it another way. We’re here. We’re nice guys. We’re doing O.K. But we know that in X number of years, we won’t be here, and between now and then something unpleasant is gonna happen, or at least potentially unpleasant and scary. And when we turn to try and understand that, I don’t really think the humanist verities are quite enough. Because that would be crazy if they were. It would be so weird if we knew just as much as we needed to know to answer all the questions of the universe. Wouldn’t that be freaky? Whereas the probability is high that there is a vast reality that we have no way to perceive, that’s actually bearing down on us now and influencing everything. The idea of saying, ‘Well, we can’t see it, therefore we don’t need to see it,’ seems really weird to me.”
But it’s a mistake, he added, to think of writing programs in terms that are “too narrowly careerist. . . . Even for those thousands of young people who don’t get something out there, the process is still a noble one — the process of trying to say something, of working through craft issues and the worldview issues and the ego issues — all of this is character-building, and, God forbid, everything we do should have concrete career results. I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.”
“I saw the peculiar way America creeps up on you if you don’t have anything,” he told me. “It’s never rude. It’s just, Yes, you do have to work 14 hours. And yes, you do have to ride the bus home. You’re now the father of two and you will work in that cubicle or you will be dishonored. Suddenly the universe was laden with moral import, and I could intensely feel the limits of my own power. We didn’t have the money, and I could see that in order for me to get this much money, I would have to work for this many more years. It was all laid out in front of me, and suddenly absurdism wasn’t an intellectual abstraction, it was actually realism. You could see the way that wealth was begetting wealth, wealth was begetting comfort — and that the cumulative effect of an absence of wealth was the erosion of grace.”
“Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.” “The Braindead Megaphone” George Saunders
“Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.” “The Braindead Megaphone” George Saunders
suffering fools, gladly
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/opinion/brooks-suffering-fools-gladly.html?hp&_r=0
"G. K. Chesterton had the best advice on suffering fools gladly. He put emphasis on the gladly. When you’re with fools, laugh with them and at them simultaneously: “An obvious instance is that of ordinary and happy marriage. A man and a woman cannot live together without having against each other a kind of everlasting joke. Each has discovered that the other is a fool, but a great fool. This largeness, this grossness and gorgeousness of folly is the thing which we all find about those with whom we are in intimate contact; and it is the one enduring basis of affection, and even of respect.”
"G. K. Chesterton had the best advice on suffering fools gladly. He put emphasis on the gladly. When you’re with fools, laugh with them and at them simultaneously: “An obvious instance is that of ordinary and happy marriage. A man and a woman cannot live together without having against each other a kind of everlasting joke. Each has discovered that the other is a fool, but a great fool. This largeness, this grossness and gorgeousness of folly is the thing which we all find about those with whom we are in intimate contact; and it is the one enduring basis of affection, and even of respect.”
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