Re: Pressure to publish, stem cell fiasco


Straydog wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Dec 2005, brandon wrote:
>
> >
> > About the stem cell research fiasco in Korea and the prof caught
> > falsifying results.
> >
> > In the subsequent BBC news, one expert (a Professor in biotech from
> > London) said that this is because of the pressure on scientists to
> > publish and be evaluated only on the basis of publications list.
> >
> > I think it is mainly in the medical field that research fraud is
> > abnormally concentrated because theres mainly experimental studies with
> > little mathematical modeling. The mathematical modeling part can be
> > easily verified by the peer reviewers but not the entire experimental
> > setup.
>
> Medicine is the only field which is so relevant to human life in a
> "life-or-death" context (eg. cancer), play on emotional/vainity need for
> plastic surgery and weight-loss, (sexual) performance enhancements, mental
> issues and psychotropic drugs, that it is very easy to see very very
> very big bucks under any rock that can be turned over.
>
> However, if you go into the history books, I'm sure you will find patents
> awarded and patent-seeking for all manner of money-generating schemes.
> Perpetual motion, battery additives (circa 1965-70, where court cases made
> widespread headlines), atomic-powered cars, 100% efficient internal
> combustion engines, and the like. Just in the last maybe two years,
> Microsoft got a patent for the double-click (now they can go out a sue
> anyone for millions), and other patent schemes are based on flimsy claims
> but can make very big bucks in litigation (see WSJ).

I didn't know about the double click, but that doesn't surprise
me. It would seem that the double click is a trival extension of
the single click. Is there someone, somewhere, thinking at this
moment, "Damn, if I'd only patented the click I'd have Microsoft
by its tender parts right now!"? :-) IMO some of the patents
that have been issued are simply absurd.

Cheers,
Russell

.

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