Re: Classifying Science: A Government Proposal...1982 Bobby R. Inman [comment from Peter Freyd]

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Mon, 18 Apr 94 13:44:29 EDT
From: pjf () saul cis upenn edu (Peter Freyd)
Bobby Inman wrote:


   I think it should also be pointed out that scientists blanket claims
 of scientific freedom are somewhat disingenuous in light of the
 arrangements that academicians routinely make with private, corporate
 sources of funding. For example, academicians do not seem to have any
 serious difficulty with restrictions on publications that arise from a
 corporate concern for trade secret protection. The strong negative
 reaction from some scientists, over the issue of protecting certain
 technical information for national security reasons, seems to be based
 largely on the fact that the federal government, rather than a
 corporation, is the source of the restriction. Yet this would presume
 that the corporate, commercial interests somehow rise to a higher
 level than do national security concerns. I could not disagree more
 strongly.


I trust that everybody at Penn is aware that Penn has a specific
policy forbidding research contracts for anything but publishable
research. The policy allows a delay in publication (for patent
purposes) but not prohibition. The delay, as I recall, can not be more
than two years.


When Penn adopted that policy in the 60's it was the first research
university to do so. The Faculty Senate meetings that led to its
passage were long and heated affairs with charges from the hawks that
the doves would have blood on their hands. (The target of the policy
was, of course, military research.) The opposition, it might be noted,
was almost entirely confined to the Engineering School. A rift was
opened in the faculty which some would say has still not healed.