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Comment by eurasiantiger | Hacker News Reader

I have spent 12 years considering all aspects of the question (and for what it's worth, I will never be done learning), but thank you for checking. You have a very strange idea of what it's like to study and do science/research.

Am I wrong in saying there are plenty of academics who pursue a career primarily in acquiring grants and funding? What is the ratio of those people to those who are in it for the truth?

Truth often doesn’t pay the bills.

Uh... In many countries, almost all academics spend a significant portion of their time applying for funding, but I'm not clear on why you think these scientists don't have a genuine interest in the "truth" lol.

Lay down your tinfoil hat.

Scientists who discover new things, disprove some other thing, reshape human knowledge or otherwise change the status quo... these are rockstar-scientists, and everyone wants to be them and do exactly that. You can't just be a contrarian though: you have to be right.

Non sequiturs are not helpful during polarized conversations. I can infer your meaning, but the idea that you're gesturing at seems absurd to me.

It seems absurd to you that Monsanto would try to affect academics and the scientific world view? Did you not read even the headline of the OP article?

Oh that's standard fare. Institutional incentives are not always aligned with human needs. Not to reduce the severity of it all. It's really bad.

I'm more incredulous about academically trained domain experts being "brainwashed". Corruption and incompetence are simpler explanations that also make sense.

Is there a difference?

Yes, there's a really big difference lol. I would encourage you to consult a dictionary or wikipedia to clear it up.

In my experience, insinuations of brainwashing are applicable in both directions. We all hold assumptions about the world which lay upon foundational beliefs like a pile of bricks. The ones at the bottom are often invisible or taken for granted.

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