In article <199310050340.AA24767 at kepler.unh.edu>, dmn at kepler.unh.edu
(There's a seeker born every minute.) wrote:
> Presumably there are at least a few of you out there who'd like to post about
> taboo or unpopular topics in neuroscience but are afraid to do so in fear of
> being ridiculed by your peers or having your funding cut off. Excuse my
> ignorance if this isn't the case.
I find it a trifle hard to believe that merely raising a weird topic would
bring someone at risk of losing funding. In fact, I find it very hard to
believe that somone with a good publishing record and coherent arguments
would feel limited in what they could speculate on, in a public and
non-official forum.
As a grad student, and a rather odd one at that, I'm often ridiculed by my
peers and have very little funding to lose. If the taboos you refer to
breaking are ones about superstition or spirituality, most neuroscience
professionals either aren't interested in such stuff, at least on a
professional level. If you're referring to ideas of people wanting to do
experiments with humans that are currently unethical, well, that may be
another matter. But, merely expressing an interest shouldn't put someone's
funding at risk.
The funding situation for scientists in the country can be somewhat, er,
amusing at times, but I don't think posts here could possibly jeapordize
anyone.
Thanks for the advice on anonymous posting, however. I think that the
information for doing stuff should be available to the public, and that you
should be commended for bringing it to us.
-Russell Mast.
