![]() ![]() Science stops being a tool to achieve things people need-clean water, shelter, food, transit, communication-and becomes a fashion accessory. Moore, who inspired the term with her Twitter critiques of what she calls sugar-daddy journalism.) Research labs cultivate plutocrats and corporate givers who want to be associated with flashy projects. That’s where sugar-daddy science comes in. Something’s always exchanged: access, status, image. The problem is, blank checks never come without strings. ![]() ![]() Private philanthropy-especially the kind that writes big, blank checks-is appealing. Many scientists spend more time writing grant applications than actually doing science. And many private foundations have, in turn, swaddled their grants in red tape. Thanks to funding cuts, getting government grants is like squeezing water from a stone. If they agree, they give you money to do X. Government agencies and foundations announce that they want to fund X, and you, the scientist, write a proposal about why you’ll be awesome at X. Historically, research has been funded by grants. These stories are two sides of the same problem: sugar-daddy science-the distortion of the research process by the pursuit of money from ultra-wealthy donors, no matter how shady. As that news was breaking, Business Insiderreported that the lab’s much-hyped “food computer” didn’t work and that staff had tried to mislead funders into thinking it did. It’s not just that the lab took donations from Jeffrey Epstein and tried to conceal their source. The MIT Media Lab has an integrity problem. ![]()
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