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Comment by jjtheblunt | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if there's a way to measure the proportions of impactful science coming from private companies versus universities. Perhaps measure by field, too, since the proprotions may differ in genomics vs electrical engineering, for example.

I don't have any idea how to calculate those proportions, but it's an awesome puzzle.

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Private companies are interested in profitable science, not impactful science. In fact it can have negative impact: Discovering a way to extend intellectual property rights for an expiring patent, or a formulation that they can charge more for. Discovering a cheap cure for cancer wouldn't help profits.

And have their own internal politics - they want science that does not disrupt the VP/CEO's plans, or make the chief scientist look bad.

> Discovering a cheap cure for cancer wouldn't help profits.

Hence patents. The new Hep C treatments are hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper than older treatments, but were still researched and developed.

Many companies, unfortunately, go out of their way to not produce meaningful science in the sense of publicly available (trade secrets) or publicly usable (patents) knowledge. Biotech especially.

How is that different from any profit seeking endeavor? You could write the same company about software companies that don't open source all of their code..

Fundamentally, it isn‘t. Practically, some industries are more open about their work than others—computer graphics (both game and cinematic) come to mind as an example on the opposite end of the spectrum from the secretive worlds of biotech or (say) semiconductor manufacturing.

My point was only that (by the definition I think makes the most sense here) they are doing science to the exact extent they give up the intellectual-property monopoly, whatever that extent happens to be.

So all the folks doing experiments on telescopes, astronomy, etc., without publicizing it during Medieval Europe were not doing science?

I mean, there’s definitely a date in the past before which this definition is not useful. On the other hand, if a human learns something new, but nobody else does as a consequence of that, has human knowledge advanced? There are always edge cases—occasionally the mere awareness that something is possible has allowed others to rediscover the method—but generally I’d say no.

That does not mean that dissemination of new information has to work like it does now. The Republic of Letters was very different but quite successful. But if you have taken no effort to make your discovery available to others, I’d say you’re not advancing the cause of human learning; if you have taken effort to ensure it is not available, like what many patents aim for nowadays, I’d say you’re working against it.

The folks doing experiments on telescopes, astronomy, etc., during Medieval Europe, almost always made great efforts to publicize their work.

On the other hand, those who at the same time were experts in, for instance, making shoes, made efforts to keep secret their techniques.

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