Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Okay?
I still don't understand where there is a problem in all of this. Having taken part in a fair share, and helped to write and evaluate a number of grant applications, your take on them is simply not accurate. Yes, when vying for funding it is important to convey a confidence in your own work and expertise, and yes, it is also important to show the feasibility of your own research project and the rigours of your methodology. However, it is also critical to produce results. With how competitive the fields are for academic funding the only projects that are actually granted money are those which make strong cases for the production of results.
So, yes: there is an aspect of "marketing" in the process of academic and scientific research, but not the sort of marketing that you imagine here. There is a tonne of research and writing that needs to take place even just to get to the position of applying for funds, and granting-bodies sure as hell are not just throwing money at every idea. In the end, these competitions are a huge part of what drives progress in the first place. It's very weird from my perspective to see anything nefarious in the process.
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You have experience in this, and I have no doubt you have more knowledge of this than probably anyone here. All I'm saying is that by most accounts, doing a vaccine in under 2 years has been unheard of to this point because it requires due process for side effects and effectiveness against the illness. Granted, in this case the enormous amount of resources being thrown at it is unprecedented as well, so there is an aspect of acceleration. Given that developing something of this nature has (to my knowledge) never been done and released this quickly, all I'm saying is there is a marketing angle for vying for funds. I don't think it's nefarious, because that's in some ways implying that it's being misappropriated or something untoward may be going on. But when something hasn't happened previously and now many scientists are claiming this can be done in a very short period of time relative to the norm, you have to wonder if you don't play that angle, and produce some lead, that you won't get funding (compared to someone who does play that angle). That's all.