EH - 79 Government Science

"Science, like anything else, is just a tool; like anything else, it can be wielded for the good or for the bad. It requires a market in ideas to keep the process discovery moving in the right direction toward truth. As Murray Rothbard wrote more than half a century ago, science "is solely the job of the free market economy. Any government meddling with this job can only distort and disrupt the economy, injure the efficient workings and development of science and technology, and substitute unwanted coercion for individual freedom." Getting government out of the funding business is the only way to discover what amazing contributions medical science in particular, and scientific inquiry in general, can make to our quality of life."

Brad Edmonds at the Mises Institute reviews the case history of several medical science concepts that weren't quite true. I lost trust in the medical profession long ago - when as a freshman pre-med in college, i looked at all the other freshmen pre-meds and thought - gads, I coundn't possibly spend the next dozen years hanging out learning medicine with these people. Now they are all government doctors and there are rules against self-medicating. Pills will kill ya.