Liam Mannix at the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia opines on the transition of science from its once iconoclastic individual efforts at discovery to an industry. The indications of a problem are the incredible growth in published papers, the peer review process, an avalanche of information, possible fraud. His analysis reads like the next chapter in Michael Polanyi's The Growth of Science in Society, Knowing and Being, written in 1967. Polyani's book describes how science was done then, Mannix talks about how it's done now.
Perhaps the most significant factor in the change in science is money. Funding for science, from the government and private sources, is administered by academia, in an effort to award more PhDs and employ more researchers. Patents are awarded for research that yields marketable discoveries and licenses are issued that produce serious income for the institutions involved. That's what has changed about science.
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