Truth, Ownership, and the Scientific Tradition

number6x writes "The Physics Today website has an article by Robert Laughlin titled "Truth, Ownership, and the Scientific tradition". The article deals with some recent blunders in the scientific community like the falsification of data at lucent covered here on slashdot. The article is mainly about the conflict between the free exchange of ideas that the scientific community needs to survive, and the demand for property ownership that commercial sponsors demand."

Comments

Let them own it

[ACNiel]

I say, let the corporate sponsors own all the half-assed, under-researched, falsified, or otherwise suspect IP.

Let the scientists use this money to fund real reasearch in which they freely share ideas.

Everybody wins. The corporations have never cared if something really works, only if they can market it. They have their IP, and we have the real research.