Ok,

I know both John and Jim.   And, I've made my living for over 30 years
doing research.

Unlike John and Jim, my team has always been self-sustaining, no salaried
federal, private, or university lines here.  No one pays us a salary, the
electric bill, etc. -- that is, no one but us.  We compete our dollars,
then pay rent in the form of indirect cost returns.

Two years ago, we formed a company.  We now do basic research through the
University (UM), applied work through our business on the north side of
Missoula (Bee Alert Technology, Inc.).  And, I should add that we were the
2nd company in Montana to be approved by the MT Board of Regents (means we
can license our own innovations back from the UM).

I have current projects through both operations.  I can't make a profit
through the UM, can in theory do so through the company -- but we plow back
every penny into our research.  Maybe in a few years we will actually have
products and services that may generate some income.  But our driving
interest is paying the bills so we can continue to work on problem solving.

Now, as to bias, which John and Jim debate.

I'm not aware that I have any more or less bias based on whether I'm
working on a project through the UM or through our business.  Reality
check:  bottom line, negative data is fine, but it doesn't result in follow
on work.  I can't fudge the data (without integrity, a scientist has
nothing), so we have to be very adaptive, good at what we do to keep going.
In fact, we'll fire, on the spot, any employee caught changing data.

That means we got to be good at problem solving, not only the client's
problem, but also everything that pops up and goes wrong in testing.  In
our group, we consider Murphy to be the optimist.

On the other hand, remember, we're working on using bees to find landmines
(UM project) and to provide an instant alert of toxic chemicals in the air
(Bee Alert Tech project).  Lives will depend on us doing this right.

So, we get statisticians involved, certification groups for testing of our
electronics, double blind trials where either a 3rd party (another lab,
university, program officer) is involved, writes a report, signs it, etc.
-- and we most often have to demonstrate our technologies IN THE FIELD in
front of a dozen or more witnesses/experts.  A couple of years ago, we had
a team of 12 people working on a double blind series of trials (distributed
over 2 years) -- the purpose of the monitored tests was to show we must be
wrong, the bees couldn't be that good.  Truckloads of video tape, countless
hours of analysis, and the bees proved to be better than we claimed.  Won
our critics over to our side.

Depending on the trial, either my group or the sponsor usually pays for the
independent assessment.  It costs money -- BUT, if I let a contract to
someone to do this for us, I DON'T want a false or faked report.  We
stipulate that we NEED to know just how good or bad it is.  That's another
place where the stats come in.

No test is perfect.  But, it makes a big difference when finding landmines
whether the probability (odds) that we will detect a buried mine is 98-100%
or 60%.  Obviously, we want 100% -- but no system finds them all.  98% is
less than desired, far better than 60%.

Its all about honesty and integrity.  Money can have a negative influence,
but if it does, I'll bet the investigator would cook the data for other
purposes, such as getting one more paper out, getting a promotion, etc.

REAL scientists won't do that.  Note, I didn't say shouldn't or scientists
in general -- even though we all know some that do.  From my vantage point,
its all about ethics, and you don't deserve the title of Scientist if
you're not ethical.

Finally, the title is NOT dependent on formal education.  Yes, a Ph.D. is a
form of union card if you're working in a university.  But, we've had lots
of Great Scientists with little or no formal education.  And if you think
this is a thing of the past, look to some of the leaders of the computer
technology industries.  You may quibble whether they are scientists,
engineers, business people -- but some of the biggest started their careers
building and testing in their garages -- and many dropped out of
school.  Which also goes to prove that some people make money in these
fields of endeavor.

Cheers

Jerry

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