(I have eliminated messages from this post, since the original post was too long. SE) -----Original Message----- From: Dr. Steve Eskow [mailto:drseskow@cox.net] Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 11:31 AM To: 'wrc@tcfir.org'; 'air-l@listserv.aoir.org' Subject: RE: [Air-l] Air-list Reid Cornwell's argument continues to be factually false. The scientists Gibbons speaks of that have controlled the flow of information to the public have been in corporate and industrial and government and military research centers as well as in the university. Indeed, much crucial research on matters (for example) pertaining to health has been conducted by giant private pharmaceutical companies who have not made this information widely available but have held it in what might be considered a "stranglehold" while poor people around the world perished from lack of the drugs which research made possible. The issue of the control of information versus its free flow is too vital to society--and to the future of the Internet--to be conducted in the inflammatory language of "stranglehold" and the like. This matter of course takes us into complex issues of patents, copywright, and the like. That the university has no stranglehold, de facto or otherwise,is refuted by the research and development that led to the Internet and the World Wide Web, and the disputes centering around control of anti-malaria drugs and antiretrovirals needed by the poor afflicted with HIV/AIDS. The notion that the private sector is the hero and the solution to the world's research needs is refuted by the private sector's behaviors in such matters as Vioxx and the other cox-2 inhibitors, and its unwillingness to share its research findings for the benefit of those needing it--except for a prohibitive price. Perhaps what is needed is an anti-inflammatory to cool down the use of such language as 'stranglehold" in an important discussion. Steve Eskow -----Original Message----- From: Dr. W. Reid Cornwell [mailto:wrc@tcfir.org] Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 10:54 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org; drseskow@cox.net Subject: RE: [Air-l] Air-list I would have preferred to have this off-list but I have been accused here of factual falsity and am compelled to respond. -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Steve Eskow Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 10:16 AM To: wrc@tcfir.org; air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Air-list Reid, and all, The matter of the relations between universities and the larger society seems critical to the future of the Internet. So: Reid describes Michael Gibbons' Mode 1 and Mode 2 this way: <<In mode 1 the Universities and their social structures and customs (praxis)have a stranglehold on the creation and dissemination of knowledge. In mode 2 applications become a major driving force. In this scenario practitioners in search of solutions to real world problems take on a more important role.These practitioners are not likely to be Ph.D.s. Gibbons does not directly say this but it is inherent in the mode 2 schema.>> The statements in this paragraph are factually false, and distort Gibbons' message. [ Reid Cornwell Wrote] I think not. Gibbons writes, "Traditionally, communications between science and society was essentially one way: scientists were the holders of privileged expert knowledge, while the lay public was to be enlightened and educated." He continues, "The previous one-way communication process from scientific from scientific experts to the lay public perceived to be scientific illiterate and in need of education and in need of education by experts has been supplanted by politically backed demands for accountability of science and technology and new public discussions in which experts have to communicate in a more 'vernacular' science than ever before." On Mode 2 research Gibbons writes, "its theoretical and methodological core is in response to problem-formulation that occur in highly specific and local contexts of application." I said my views were parallel not the same. My argument is that "science equals the academy." Traditionally, the academy has, at the least, had a de facto stranglehold. First, and most important: the universities have never had, or claimed, or wanted "a stranglehold on the creation and dissemination of knowledge." Had they wanted such a "stranglehold" they have never had the power to prevent the government, the military, the industrial research laboratory, or the solitary explorer in his basement from researching. Indeed, a major criticism of university research is that it has often been compromised by its dependence on funds from these non-university sources, and that its research agenda has often been shaped by donor interests rather than society's needs and thus there has developed the drift to applied rather than basic research. [ Reid Cornwell Wrote] The accountability that Gibbons refers to is a reaction to the pretensions of the Academy and its arrogance of customs. Gibbons' Mode 2 is largely in effect now: "partnerships" and close collaboration between the university research lab and the research activities of the business, industry, the military, and government. The trend is in this direction, and it is unlikely that it will stop. In one view we now need another independent research effort to determine whether the long term interests of the nation and the world are being neglected in the pursuit of research devoted to products and processes with an immediate profit potential. [ Reid Cornwell Wrote] This partnership you speak of is an unwilling, if not unholy alliance at its best. Accountability (intellectual and financial) means control in these partnerships. You are correct in your assessment of the trend, but it is a self inflicted wound. This trend and current needs for researchers seem to offer no clear signal for our need for researchers at the Ph.D. level. Part of that answer seems related to the question of how research attention is divided between basic and applied research. [ Reid Cornwell Wrote] The Internet has exposed the dense communication of the academy and asked, "is this what we are paying for?" Keep in mind that this thread was in the context of "Are We Producing too many Ph.D.s?", which asserts that Mentors influence their students by counseling them that research outside the academy is a failure in their careers. This may not be a stranglehold in brute force terms but is certainly a stranglehold of intellectual manipulation, speaking metaphorically. Steve Eskow