Re: Unboxed - When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder - NYTimes.com

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Andrew W. Donoho" <awd () DDG com>
Date: September 9, 2008 5:18:53 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:     Unboxed - When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of  
Wonder - NYTimes.com

Dave,

        For IP.

Thanks,
Andrew

On Sep 9, 2008, at 04:53, David Farber wrote:

> The question that sometimes matters is whether the scientist takes  
> responsibility for the application of the knowledge they generate.    
> It doesn't erase the ethical responsibility of a scientist for the  
> application of their work to say that "knowledge has been  
> advanced".  If you get funding for physics research from those who  
> will use it to make better bombs, you "own" the responsibility to  
> make damn sure the bombs don't get used.   But even if you do that  
> research based on funds from the Dalai Lama, you have *exactly the  
> same responsibility*.  The source of funds doesn't eliminate your  
> personal responsibility.



Folks,

	I'm not so sure ethics of science/technology development is so "cut  
and dried".

	In my case, I made a decision in my youth to avoid studying particle  
or nuclear physics. I consciously tried to avoid the ethical issues  
involved with bomb building. Before starting my first software  
company, I helped in basic surface physics research. It had military  
funding and resulted eventually in better chips for guiding bombs.  
Those same chips also had many positive uses in society. Technology is  
quite neutral. How you get your funding isn't. Yet, that isn't so  
clear cut either. My first software company built scientific  
visualization software. My youthful mission was to build software for  
budding Nobel Laureates. I was initially funded by oil money from  
Houston. (Let's leave aside the "cleanliness" issue of oil money.) Of  
course, as we sold product, we had continuing funding by our  
customers. You can imagine my surprise and dismay reading a returned  
product registration card from Lawrence Livermore Labs. In answer to  
the question "why did you buy this product?", the new happy owner  
wrote: "Build Better Bombs". I was now funded by the very folks I had  
specifically avoided. Was I supposed to go into LLL and get my copy  
back? Somehow rescind my license to the Federal Government? Was I  
supposed to return the money and violate my fiduciary responsibility  
to shareholders, creditors and employees? No, this issue came with the  
territory of selling shrink wrapped software. I could control where I  
marketed my product but that also had fiduciary repercussions.

        These ethics issues are not so "cut and dried".

Andrew

____________________________________
Andrew W. Donoho
awd () DDG com, PGP Key ID: 0x81D0F250
+1 (512) 453-6652 (o), +1 (512) 750-7596 (m)

"To take no detours from the high road of reason and social  
responsibility."
   -- Marcus Aurelius









-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com