Large-scale military funding induces culture clash
Abstract Mission-oriented research shifts the assessment of research products and potential from scientists to external factors. This is the point of mission funding, but it introduces what the author calls ‘epistemic drift’, which is part of a more general clash between different value systems and cultures. The culture clash between the military and industry has led to a shift in debate from spin-off to dual-use technologies. Similar conflicts and tensions are introduced into the university research system by large-scale mission funding such as that of SDI, and it is imperative that universities establish a strong civilian base for fundamental research funding instead of lobbying for military support.
Spin-Off: A Fundamentalist Approach
It remains such a strong positive notion: that the military use of R&D not only safeguards security in the technological arms race, it also enhances the economic well-being of the nation by virtue of spin-off. Yet this pleasant combination becomes more and more disputed. R&D, or creativity, after all remains humankind’s most important resource for survival . There are growing suspicions that this scarce resource should be geared to ends other than means of destruction , and that the flow of inventions from the military sector to general or (what a strange distinction) “civilian” technology does not represent a stream, but a mere trickle. The high level of uncertainty about the real magnitudes of commonly used technology stemming from military activities and the bitter dispute among protagonists about the validity/invalidity of the whole argument provoke this contribution . Such a “fundamentalist” approach, which tries to delineate what can be known and what not , is not a frivolous attempt. With a view to clarifying a highly ideologized argument (the next section depicts the dimensions) , the question to be asked in a meticulous, maybe pedantic , manner is : What can science reasonably say to the spin-off debate?
American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People
This is a story of rumour, charity, vengeance, and restraint. "American Insurgents, American Patriots" reminds us that revolutions are violent events. They provoke passion and rage, a willingness to use violence to achieve political ends, a deep sense of betrayal, and a strong religious conviction that God expects an oppressed people to defend their rights. The American Revolution was no exception. A few celebrated figures in the Continental Congress do not make for a revolution. It requires tens of thousands of ordinary men and women willing to sacrifice, kill, and be killed. Breen not only tells the history of these ordinary Americans but, drawing upon a wealth of rarely seen documents, restores their primacy to America's road to independence. Mobilizing two years before the Declaration of Independence, American insurgents in all thirteen colonies concluded that resistance to British oppression required organized violence against the state. They channeled popular rage through elected committees of safety and observation, which before 1776 were the heart of American resistance. "American Insurgents, American Patriots" is the stunning account of their insurgency, without which there would have been no independent republic as we know it.