MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 13--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME
Philosopher Craig Callender (UC San Diego) comments in CHE; an excerpt:
Money follows research but research also follows money. By pouring millions of dollars into carbon-capture technology — unproven technology that would remove carbon dioxide from the air, but which does not demand emissions reductions — fossil-fuel companies are bending research in their favor. The skewed landscape helped justify putting more money into carbon capture than renewables in the recent 2022 Inflation Reduction Act....
Right now, research funding is mostly hidden. We owe it to the public to open the curtain. Universities should require researchers to disclose publicly all funding sources from the past five years for all their research products. They should name both the funder and amount; nothing more, nothing less. Research products include articles, government comments, publications, presentations, newspaper op-eds, white papers, news releases, courtroom testimony, and more — wherever a researcher can be reasonably understood to be speaking as an expert.
This straightforward approach sidesteps the dreaded slippery-slope reaction: Why target fossil fuels? What about other misbehaving industries — and who decides what counts as misbehaving anyway?
The worry that "research also follows money" arose in connection with the substnatial financial support the Templeton Foundation (with its pro-capitalism, and pro-religino agendas) has offered philosophers. We discussed this issue not quite a decade ago, and it seemed to me at the time it wasn't an issue. I wonder what informed readers think now about this question, and whether anything has changed in the intervening years. (Please look at the earlier thread before weighing in.)
