There is a thought that was brought up a long time ago about who science is for. At first I think I kind of blew it off as a rebuttal of science, but being a mostly white rich country pursuit. Science is kind of only serving populations that fund it, and it only works on problems that the people who do it find important.
Lately I have been seeing this critique as more and more true, not just from a social justice warrior view, but from a practical point of view.
Problem generation can only happen when you are able to identify a problem. However, if the people working on solving these problems can only see a subset, then what happens?
Take cancer as an example, an absolutely terrible disease, receives a ridiculous amount of funding in contrast to how many people it kills. Neglected tropical diseases on the other hand, receive much less funding for the amount of people it affects. This might not include malaria, which has received lots of funding and world research.
This extends further than just funding, but also restricts the amount of people thinking about the problems. In books there are usually whole chapters devoted to cancer, typically also institutes, and the best researchers usually go to projects and places with this type of research.
Its kind of the same as brain drain, where intelligent and talented workers move away from where they were born to work in richer countries.
Problem drain.
Lately I have been seeing this critique as more and more true, not just from a social justice warrior view, but from a practical point of view.
Problem generation can only happen when you are able to identify a problem. However, if the people working on solving these problems can only see a subset, then what happens?
Take cancer as an example, an absolutely terrible disease, receives a ridiculous amount of funding in contrast to how many people it kills. Neglected tropical diseases on the other hand, receive much less funding for the amount of people it affects. This might not include malaria, which has received lots of funding and world research.
This extends further than just funding, but also restricts the amount of people thinking about the problems. In books there are usually whole chapters devoted to cancer, typically also institutes, and the best researchers usually go to projects and places with this type of research.
Its kind of the same as brain drain, where intelligent and talented workers move away from where they were born to work in richer countries.
Problem drain.