Interesting coincidence this thinking comes from a key participant in discrediting operations.

A scientific journal is the place to show that a method is wrong, or that results cannot be reproduced; but it cannot be the place to show intention to deceive. That is not a scientific matter; that is a matter for the courts, or other duly constituted authorities.

In case you have not noticed, in the UK, there are laws of defamation, and the publisher (the journal) is liable if they publish a defamation. If you truly claimed that a paper was fraudulent, I have every sympathy with the journal.
yours
per

Upon receipt of my comment letter the response of the editor of Applied Optics was to deny my letter peer review with the words: “This is not the way”. So it seems that the right to publish in suposedly scientific journals is to be restricted to the cheats and liars.

Anyway my sociological experiment was to test this “cheats and liars” hypothesis. To do this I emailed 300 copies of my rejected comment letter to 300 workers in the optics field at universities and similar institutions, telling them briefly the above story and leaving it up them to do anything they like about it.

This was three weeks ago. So far I have had not a single reply. It seems thatthe field of physics at any rate is entirely the preserve of the cheats and liars.

email me if you want a copy: jm@photonic-systems-solutions.com

J Midgley

Especially in today’s competitive environment most companies can support only very directed R&D with a 2-5 year payoff. Companies rely on the huge technology transfer from universities, brought to them chiefly by newly minted, newly hired Ph.D.’s. No technology-dependent US companies — nor any other, really — could compete today without that knowledge transfer. This was explicitly acknowedged by US companies during the 1980′s when they were being steam-rollered by Japan. There was a lot of government worry about transferring technology from universities to corporations. Remember Sematech? The corporations replied that technology was efficiently transferred from universities with their new hires from every graduating class. This critical economic benefit is largely invisible to a casual view, and goes entirely unnoticed by people who think as you do. You could, of course, change your mind in light of that.

I too am bemused. The article quotes “Susan B. Hazen, acting assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances.

The science is still coming in on PFOA, but the concern is there,

Concern, or rather, peoples paranoia, is a typical rational for the EPA thugs. The article further states:

Scientific studies have not established a link between using products containing trace amounts of PFOA…

Hazen said yesterday’s announcement should “not indicate any concern . . . for consumers using household products” with such coatings.

What logic! First there should be concern (presumably before extorting $16.5 million out of Dupont) to “not indicate” any concern. Sheesh! So what we have is Dupont paying $16.5 million to avoid an expensive and uncertain litigation over a technical report violation. While, on the other hand, the EPA gets a fair amount of positive press for protecting us from a perceived (read paranoid perception), rather then a real hazard.

Early in the thread you said:

PFOA is not teflon. I am bemused by your claims of a cover-up, and confused as to what might be covered up; there is a substantial publically-available literature on PFOA. However, I must advise you; when you hear the sound of helicopters, it is far better to assume that they are in fact unmarked, black helicopters, coming to take you away before you blow the whistle on the conspiracy.

I have to say I’m bemused by your bemusement …see below

“The move, which came just a month after DuPont reached a $16.5 million settlement with EPA over the company’s failure to report possible health risks associated with PFOA, drew applause from environmental groups that have frequently criticized both the administration and DuPont.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/25/AR2006012502041.html

In light of the stem stell, Dutch, hockey stick and other scandels, maybe it is important that we have the debate about the proper role of goverment in scientific research, particularly spending. In the US, there has been no public debate regarding the proper role of government in funding. It is merely assumed that this is good and proper and we leave the bureacrats to run (and abuse) the system they create.

And, please consider that in the US, Madison’s ideas about the Constitution are relevant today. If we think that the government should do things differently, then the proper forum is public debate and then amendments to the Constitution — the Constitution provides for changes to it. Is it not more honest to work through the issues and change the Constitution rather than assume we know the outcome of the debate and act accordingly (and unConstitutionally)? If the outcom of a national debate is to change the Constitution to allow for the funding of science, then so be it…it would be the law of the land. But the law of the land, as of yet, has not yet been changed to allow for federal funding of scientific research, building of bridges, railroads, NASA, and a whole host of other things please don’t take this as a value judgement on those things, only that there is no Constitutional provision for the funding of those things on a federal level. A debate on those issues would be good and wholesome for the country, too. Through it, we might find the beginnings of the answer to the problems of funding scientific research.

As an aside – I know Steve is a Canadian so this debate, being US centric, might be a little off. But the principles still hold for every country that funds science. How does your country’s constitution deal with the issue? Are there things we can learn from it, knowing that many in the US have an aversion to socialist ideas?

what is efficiency in fundamental science ?

Efficiency in FUNDING of fundamental science.

Let’s let the dollars flow from the people that earned them directly to the researchers without having them take the (far from) scenic route through the IRS, the bureaucracies, the politicians, back through the bureaucracies, and eventually to the researchers with bits and pieces shaved off along the way so that only 10-20% of the original amount makes it to the scientists. You pay a lot of overhead to get government funding, and you enrich politicians and bureaucrats along the way. Better that that money enriched scientists.

The idea that this is an economically viable investment which will give you ROI is sadly, an example of a paradigm which cannot usefully be employed. I am afraid I would then struggle to see how your free market would work efficiently, when you are effectively pouring money down the drain to feed the god of science.

I think it depends on how you define what is a “return” in ROI. For some contributors to science, the return may be an increase in fundamental scientific knoweledge. Others may view their contribution as a financial investment. Either way, I feel it should be an individual decision where one spends their own hard-earned money, not some politician’s.

Who financed Newton? Galileo? Edison? Who financed many of the scientists before the expanded state that is common throughout the world?

Newton was lucasian professor of maths at Cambridge University at the relevant time (http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Newton.html). However, I don’t understand your point in bringing this up. The argument was adduced that the private sector will do research better than the public sector, because of its intrinsically greater efficiency. Neither Newton nor Galileo were funded on the basis that they would give better ROI for private investors.

While it is noticeable that you hark back to the better days before these expanded states that have become so common in the last couple of centuries, I personally think it bizarre that you should use the 17th century as a touchstone for how governments should behave in the 21st century. In case you haven’t noticed, the high added value industries require highly skilled (i.e. PhD level) scientists; and much publically-funded science has seen extremely profitable exploitation- for example, the biotech revolution which now underpins much current pharma. I don’t see that there is even a model whereby you could privately fund pure science.

cheers
per