I received this message:



>  We all know a lot of the research work is worthless as its done wrong or skewed.



Because research doesn’t have “practical value” doesn’t mean it’s worthless. In science, all research has value, even — or especially — failures. If somebody finds something out that doesn’t work, then others don’t have to make that mistake. When somebody advances our knowledge even a jot, that information may have a pay-off years down the road, if ever. But we cannot research only the things that have “potential value.” That’s what Big Pharma does and see where it leads. 



We need new antibiotics but nobody is working on that because there isn’t a lot of money to be made. They would rather make cholesterol lowering drugs even though scientists have shown the serum cholesterol is not directly linked to heart attacks. 90% of what is sold is worthless; gluten free products are everywhere even though most of the gluten nuts are doing it as a fad, not for real health reasons. Organic products fetch a higher price, even though they are proven — by scientists — to be no healthier than regular food. 



Politicians only know how to do one thing: get elected. If that means pandering to the ignorance of the masses, that’s what they do. There is a saying: garbage in — garbage out. Research has to be designed to produce quality data with minimal noise. As far as politicians, the saying should be: anything in — garbage out. They don’t care about the truth, just votes. And the voters are even worse. The Congress had a 5% approval rating but the same politicians are mostly reëlected and still there, spending our money on perks. 



I work in a research lab, and it is very difficult to advance knowledge. The “easy” stuff has already mostly been done, leaving very hard problems. Many of the fields produce spectacular results than only a handful people can understand, let alone appreciate. Like Randy said, you want research done — on what? Spell it out. But millions of dollars spent doesn’t guarantee a problem will be solved, or even properly framed. 



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Peter L Borst

Paula Cohen Lab 

VRT9-007, Tower Road

Cornell University

Ithaca, NY 14853





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