The Fantasyland of Conflict of Interest
Bryan Caplan,
Bet On It,
Sept 30, 2024
There's a number of things to address in this article but probably the most base is the equivalence it draws between being influenced by financial interests to make a certain assertion and being influenced by political leanings or networks of friends. These are of course not at all equivalent - I tell people, for example, that my political leanings follow from my research; they are not the source of it. For example, as people discover every time there's a natural disaster of any sort, socialism emerges pretty quickly as the best and only way to cope with it. I wouldn't expect to receive funding based on my views. I don't write on affirmative action, but if I did I would be saying something like "admission rates should reflect wider demographics", which reflects a basis in race only if racism in admissions already exists. If a person forms their own opinions based on ideology or race or on who is paying them, they might expect this to generalize, but my experience is that it does not.
Today: 1 Total: 943 [Direct link] [Share]
