The Problem
At a time when we are quite aware of the need for and value of transparency
in the reporting of the activities of corporations (thanks most recently
to the Enron affair), we could quite usefully extend this transparency
metaphor to other parts of day-to-day life. The print press, TV, radio,
and internet are filled with opinions and advice from all sorts of people.
Many of these pass for expert status just based on affiliation with
universities, institutes, and think tanks.
Increasingly we must ask ourselves, “whose opinion is this?”
Who is being served by the expertise?
Although many in the academic and chic cultural world (not to mention
the various right-wing types in political and religious quarters) may
think that relativism is the creation of post-WWII French philosophy,
most of the rest of the world knows full well that “truth”
is in fact relative, that is, relative to who is paying. No surprise,
the “experts” know this too, and regularly seek to hide or
obscure who is paying. Now, even the pinnacle of prestige in the medical
world, The New England Journal of Medicine, has had to strengthen
its guidelines that seek to separate research performed at arms length
from the pharmaceutical/medical industrial complex from that more directly
controlled.
A Step Towards a Solution
What can we do to provide a substantial increase in the transparency
of our information sources while keeping things simple?
We should begin to demand that every expert, commentator, think tank
institute, or university laboratory reveal the sources of 80% of the
funds supporting its research/organizational activities. In the vast
majority of case the list of sources will not exceed three or four.
This protocol will provide a revealing base of background information
without substantial burdens.
A Caveat
Although the protocol proposed here will increase the transparency
of our sources of information, it will not relieve us of the work of
making sense out of the data and theories presented in any given situation.
Just because a given piece of research is funded by “bad people”
does not mean that the data is not meaningful and the analysis correct.
January 31, 2002