Readings:
- Justin Biddle, “Lessons from the Vioxx Debacle: What the Privatization of Science Can Teach Us About Social Epistemology”
- James Robert Brown, “The Community of Science®”
- Julian Reiss, “In favour of a Millian proposal to reform biomedical research”
Watch:
- James Robert Brown, “Patents & Progress”
Graduate students
Also read Wagner & McGarity, Bending Science, focus on chapters 1-3, 10-11.
Overview
Some influences on science are equally if not more nefarious. In recent decades, there has been an increasing entanglement of commercial interests with science. Corporate-backed researchers as well as university researchers who receive various kinds of corporate funding have had an increasingly important role in a variety of industries. Patenting and licensing of the products of scientific research has become increasingly a part of research, especially in the biomedical sector. The commercialization of science is increasingly an important phenomena, in part because it is a potential source of biased and socially irresponsible science.