Science as Commodities

In: Philosophy of the social sciences: an international journal = Philosophie des sciences sociales, Band 40, Heft 1, S. 154-171

Abstract

The paucity of literature on the economics of science renders this book valuable. Also, it includes a few interesting papers. Education and research may become more efficient, and their economic aspects want explanations. The explanations may offer suggestion for improvements. The discussions here are mostly unserious and the serious ones are not far-reaching.They concern patent laws more than seems reasonable and ignore many economic aspects of science, mainly its poor communication systems, including university presses, most of which are inept. Practical proposals should address the worst problems and their implementation need repeated checking. For this, they must be transparent and democratically controlled. The book totally ignores all this.