Tenured Research or No Research

One of the greatest and most effective institutions developed by Western Civilization is Tenured Professorship in the Universities. What Tenure means is that a Tenured Professor has a life lock on his Job. No one can fire a Tenured Professor. The effect of this is that Tenured Professors can act with complete Intellectual and Scientific Integrity.

But nowadays the Corporate Culture is making an end run around the University System of Research and setting up their own Scientific Research Companies. The difference is that the Corporations specifically stipulate that their Research Managers NOT BE TENURED. Indeed, there is so little integrity within Corporate Science that they make absolutely no secret that Job Security is directly connected to producing Stipulated Targeted Results – the Data will go the way the Company wants or everyone gets fired.

Corporate Research Grants are all issued on this same premise, that results come back pleasing to the Company or no further Grants are issued.

Why do we allow this pretence to continue masquerading as Science.

All Non-Tenured Research should simply be shut down. Every Non-Tenured Study should be thrown out. Yes, yes, yes, the Corporations can counterfeit perfectly acceptable looking Studies. They hirer Researchers who know what Valid Studies are supposed to look like. So Corporate Research will appear valid enough. Double Blind Controlled Studies are fine. Peer Review is fine. But these procedural safeguards can do nothing to prevent the simple fudging of Data. But when everybody’s Employment depends upon targeted results with Data leaning for the Company and not against it, then we can only be left to believe that secretly, covertly, and not even necessarily because any actual illicit instructions are given, that the Researchers will fix a point here and fix a point there, so they can all keep their Jobs. The only Procedural Safeguard that can be applied is to completely duplicate the Study and see if the results repeat, but the Corporation feel quite secure that nobody would wish to spend the money and commit the resources to go to such an extent, especially since anybody with that kind of Money probably belongs to their same Country Club.

So Tenure is the only practical answer. Unless there is Tenure, we cannot assume there is any Integrity in Science for Profit.

Oh, the same goes for Private Forensic Laboratories – those that contract out to Police Departments and Prosecutor Offices. You see, it has actually happened that when Evidence Laboratories had returned Findings indicating that certain Criminal Suspects were actually cleared of any wrongdoing, the Laboratories contract’s were dropped… they were fired… “blackballed” with the word going out for no Law Enforcement Agency to ever contract with that Lab ever again. Then the Prosecutors would go out and sign on new Labs who would understand that they would do what they were paid to do… certify evidence that could convict the indicated Suspects. Oh, the Prosecutors even argue that this is Ethical, since the Defense Attorneys are perfectly free to go out and get their own Lab Results (describing a system where we can no longer believe anybody, since Science shines the same subject equally White and Black depending upon who pays the bills). So all Forensic Labs used to process Evidence need to be Tenured. Contracts can not in any way be Results Oriented… not without some Contracting Officer going to jail for Corruption.

So, yes, anyway, Corporations and Civil Government should not be allowed to practice Science without Tenure. But the sad thing is that even the Universities are beginning to drop the Institution of Tenure. They have noticed that the Non-Tenured Employees and Contractors from the Corporate World are so much more pliable then their own Tenured Professors who are nice enough until they are Tenured, but then get so arrogant and stubborn about everything afterward. They quite forget that such is rather the point. But in this Age of Specialization, University Administrators are, well, administrators, and their only concern is that their own jobs be made easy. Understanding the Meaning of Life and their Role in Civilization, well, that had never been part of their Specialty – courses like that were merely elective while they focused mostly on their Business Administration track… where the money’s at. Anyway, these Deans and University Administrators, since they are told that they are the Bosses of the Colleges, they can’t understand why everything can’t go the way they dictate they should. The Professors work for them, don’t they? and ought to do what they are told. Tenure just makes them unruly.