Sex, Science and Profits: Amazon.co.uk: Terence Kealey: Books

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Product Description

Review
Praise for Kealey' s" The Economic Laws of Scientific Research":
" A brilliant book. One of the most appetizing and sustained polemics ever concocted on a serious
topic" -- "Economist"
" One of the most intelligent, trend-changing and courageous books I have ever read" -- Matt Ridley, "Daily Telegraph"

Management Today
`Kealey writes with the passion of a zealot, which makes the book brisk and...entertaining.'

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3.2 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compulsory reading for politicians and University management, 13 Nov 2008

By	Jorge Oliveira (Cork, Ireland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent book that argues magnificently the reality of the economics of scientific research. It does not argue for the beautiful visions of how research is going to improve the world, but for the facts that can be sustained by hard data. The findings may be surprising for some. The author provides a holistic interpretation of the observations from the realities of nature and of humans.

The book goes from the beginnings of scientific History, insofar as it is documented, to prove that the realities that underpin the evolution of science, of technology, of the economy and of the research in between, have actually remained pretty much the same. Time and again mankind has proved that (i) the public funding of research does not directly result in economic benefits, investment and jobs, (ii) the public funding of research does have many benefits that indirectly provide the environment for economic benefits, investment and jobs, but it does not drive them, (iii) advocates of the opposite that have vested interests in public research funding are very successful in persuading the public of their theory, specially politicians in a day and age when they feel somewhat intellectually inferior to said prestigious advocates.

It should be compulsory reading for politicians, specially in this day and age. Above all, it should be read by all senior executives in Universities. Some proposals are controversial (for instance, that humanity would be better off by scrapping the patent protection scheme), and it is unlikely that any reader will agree with every argument and every comment in the book, but the gist of it is indeed brilliant, and serious thought and discussions should be going on around University and Ministry of Science corridors out of the facts discussed in this book.

The author is a senior academic, and so am I, so I hope that it will be seen as quite refreshing that there still are people in Universities who prefer to read the data first, interpret the facts first, then take conclusions, instead of trying hard to make data fit theories, although they might be nice theories in themselves, and even though they might have a vested interest that said theories were true.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing and frustrating book, 28 Jan 2009

By	whart0 (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sex, Science and Profits (Paperback)

One starts this book thinking it will be a well researched and well argued historical analysis, but soon it becomes apparent the author is more interested in pushing his views that private enterprise is good and government action bad. That would be acceptable were it not for the fact that he skews the evidence, ignores or minimises those items that would undermine his cause and avoids difficult questions.

For example, the author praises the rise of the Dutch Republic in the 17th century as an example of the success of laissez faire policies, but the Dutch decline through the 18th century is dismissed as "they were invaded". True, but not till 1795, by which time the Dutch Republic was a shadow of its former self. As the Dutch had followed the same laissez faire policies through the 18th century decline, it would have been interesting to analyse why the results were so different during the second hundred years. No such luck though.

The credit crunch inevitably causes some of the assumptions the author is working with to be more critically examined, and that too undermines his approach

I would have welcomed a thorough analysis of science and markets, this book though isn't that.

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2.0 out of 5 stars Riddled with mistakes and flawed arguments but an interesting contribution to the debate, 18 April 2009

By	Andrew Dalby "ardalby" (oxford) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Sex, Science and Profits (Paperback)

This book builds upon the authors previous work looking at how science is funded. The author is the vice-chancellor of Buckingham University one of the very few private universities in the UK. So as you would expect given this position his argument is that science is better funded privately than by public funds.

His presentation is very biased and there are numerous mistakes in the text and in the facts and examples he uses. His worst mistake is confusing science with technology as applied science is something very different to the theory, but he is right in some cases that theory follows practice rather than the other way around as contended by governments. He is also right that funding academic science often gives poor results compared to industrial funding but that is the nature of academia which is much less focused especially towards short term goals.

So in the end I think he provides an interesting set of opinions and with more careful presentation of the facts and less emphasis on trying to sell the book (sex has nothing to do with it except for some very tangential and artificial points) then he might find more supporters for his argument.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Hugely entertained and informed
I thoroughly enjoyed this romp through the history of scientific development, its paymasters both public, private and the financially disinterested amateur scientists who have... Read more

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