Science 102 – The Invisible Scientists

My first encounter with science was while I was in year 6. The most exciting thing from a science point of view was that a man was about to step onto the moon. Yea, the moon! Heady stuff back in its day.

Obviously the US was milking it for all it was worth and so was NASA. It was all most people could talk about! Many, many people thought it was a waste but everyone was as impressed as hell.

The news coverage was mind boggling. We got to know many of the scientists. They became the heroes. They took news conferences, answered questions visited schools. The scientists were famous. Yes, they were eventually eclipsed by Neil and Buzz but for a very long time in the lead up to the landing the scientists were top dog!

In 1980 Phillips brought out the compact disk, invented by James Russell in 1965. We all knew who the inventor was.
So it was with most inventions. They were mentioned by name and often attended press conferences.

So, what happened. Yes, in scientific journals you still get the scientists name, perhaps a photo and short bio, but not often in the MSM. Now the PR guy, or even the CEO gets up and shows us the latest and greatest.

We are told that the Mighty Corporation invented this and engineered that. They did no such thing. Scientists and engineers have gradually been taken out of the limelight and shoved in the broom closet, metaphorically speaking.

A corporation has never and never will invent anything! It is people that use their brains to invent things and yet the corporations want the credit for the hard intellectual work of the scientists. This is wrong, so wrong.

Scientists are becoming the slave caste, slaves to the multinationals, slaves to the Governments. Governments can now raid a scientists place of work, steal all of the research and claim, ‘It is in the interests of National Security.’ When did Governments get that ability. They gave themselves that ability and the poor scientists no longer seem to own their own ideas.

We are told that it takes mega bucks to invent things and come up with new ideas. We are conditioned to believe that tripe. It is what the corporate world and the corporate universities want the public to believe. Without the scientists you have squat!

We have to stop this crap and put scientists back in charge of their own ideas and discoveries.

Corporations are not people and anyone that says they are is a moronic idiot masquerading as a peanut brained twat!

P

In the cause of drug research it does take mega bucks, especialy for new cancer treatments and new anti biotics, the reason being all the easy stuff been found, now just the manpower alone of the teams working on these stretchs into the 10's of millions. Once you factor in the needed state of the art lab equipment and legal procedures like drug trials your looking at 500 million. And as much as you may want to cut the red tape you cant without risking the release of a dodgy drug like what happened with thalidomide.

reply to post by crazyewok


True! On the other hand we have more dodgy drugs on the market now than ever before and the number seems to be increasing exponentially. This is because Big Pharma just about owns the damn Government along with other Multinational conglomerates.

ATS is packed full with those stories.

P

It was really not that much different back when Edison was stealing from Tesla and taking the credit.

The big names in industry that we, today, squint back in time and associate with innovation usually got there by building off of other people's work.

Now, with a new shiny gadget coming out every other month, with the cow-eyed general populance eating it up hand over fist with half their heads shoved up the glowy end of a cell phone or tablet, concepts like, NEW, AMAZING, Life-Changing, etc.are all a little 'meh' as it's heard and seen every day.

Corporations have exploited innovation and scientists for as long as corporations have been around.
Thing is, however, the corporations are getting bigger, more monolithic such that, they're becoming machines where people (workers, scientists, and everything in between) get poured in one end and products come out the other.

Of course, not only do we have bigger Corporations in comparison to yesteryear, but, we've a substantially greater population and variety demographic to support them.
Bigger companies, and larger populations make for greater anonymity and difficulty in sticking out to make enough of a difference such there's any recognition for it.

Further it's more difficult for independent inventor types to go start-up, than it is to go earn and easy predictable salary, especially in such a dodgy market.

This isn't to say there aren't any independent and small scale innovators out there. One just needs look for them a bit harder.

pheonix358
The news coverage was mind boggling. We got to know many of the scientists. They became the heroes. They took news conferences, answered questions visited schools. The scientists were famous. Yes, they were eventually eclipsed by Neil and Buzz but for a very long time in the lead up to the landing the scientists were top dog!

I guess that was before my time. Who were the most memorable scientists for you, that you're referring to in that passage?

There was a war between VHS versus Beta format, which VHS won. Then a similar war took place from 2006-2007 in the HD-DVD versus blu-ray format war. I suspect as a result there may be incentive for even corporations which compete with each other to work together to develop industry standards for new technologies like blu-ray for example, because even the winners lose when these wars take place, as consumers defer their purchases while the wars are going on:

These format wars have often proved destructive to both camps because consumers, afraid of committing to a losing standard, will refrain from purchasing either.[2] Format wars have been avoided in notable cases such as the DVD Forum for the unified DVD standard...

Some of these new technologies and standards really are a collective effort of not just multiple people working together but even corporations setting aside competitive interests long enough to work together on industry standards for the technology they will be manufacturing (for reasons of compatibility, etc.) I think they realize that all the manufacturers lose in these wars between competing technology formats. But this makes it even harder to single anybody out when you have not only multiple people withing a company, but even multiple companies involved in standards development.

The lone hero working alone is somewhat a thing of the past, as far as a lot of science goes. Some inventors could still come up with new ideas on their own though if they aren't pushing the boundaries of science too far. For example, someone could still invent a better mousetrap, without using any kind of advanced technology.

pheonix358
reply to post by crazyewok

 

True! On the other hand we have more dodgy drugs on the market now than ever before and the number seems to be increasing exponentially. This is because Big Pharma just about owns the damn Government along with other Multinational conglomerates.

ATS is packed full with those stories.

P

O Im not going to argue big pharma are a dishonnest lot. One of the reason I dont work for them anymore.

But the bill for all that research still stands. And even if big pharma acted honnest and virtuas the big 100 million bills for drug research would still stand or be even higher as more safety protacols are brought in and compensation claims are granted.

Most inventions are invented by someone other than the one who gets rich off of them. The ideas for inventions usually come from ordinary people, but modifying the idea takes knowledge to make it more affordable to produce and money to promote it's acceptance. Most times the product would never get to market if the original inventor tried to introduce it. some of the concept of things that were designed many years ago and utilized by the family for generations, only to be discovered by someone else, altered a little, patented, and promoted to gain lots of wealth. Was the idea stolen? No you can not patent an idea, only a product.

reply to post by rickymouse

you can not patent an idea, only a product.

That rickymouse is just how the Corporate world wants it. You know, if we celebrated our wise men, as we used to, then we could protect ideas and ensure the brilliant minds were able to be recompensed. In the past they at least received the adoration of the public and got paid in the form of better patronage.

As you say, it is now the product that gets recompensed and that is sad. Of course that assumes that the Government does not steal it in the name of national security or a big corporation steals it and uses it without compensation or worse still prevents the scientist from using it because it would compete with their interests.

It is always the little guy that loses.

P