Does science discourage new ideas and free thinking?

Question

Since all "scentific" discoveries have to be sanctioned and scrutinized by an acidemic community that is finacially paid off so it discourages new discoveries?

Answer 1

Who exactly are you alleging "pays off" the scientific community to discourage new discoveries?
Generally, funding for science is governmentally-sourced. The government gives money to scientific funding bodies who then allocate that money to research project performed in reasearch institutes.

It is true that the funding bodies are unlikely to give money to a project that they consider is not going to give results - and that this process cannot be 100% foolproof (you cannot *know* that an idea is flawed). However, the funding bodies *do* have a percentage of their funding set aside for "blue-skies" and high-risk research.
It is also true that, as scientists are people and therefore imperfect, a certain amount of politics will be involved (a funding body might be more likely to fund research that the scientists on the board are particularly fond of, or less likely to allocate money to other scientists that they don't get on well with).

But the funding bodies are emphatically *not* about stopping new discoveries. In fact - *all* of science is essentially about making new discoveries all the time!
Even companies with a strong agenda for their research want that research to provide new discoveries: that's what it is *for*!

Answer 2

>"Since all "scentific" discoveries have to be sanctioned and scrutinized by an acidemic community that is finacially paid off ..."


??? Financially paid off *BY WHOM*?

(It never ceases to amaze me how little some people actually think things through.)

Answer 3

You have a cynical view of science! Any new idea is rightly scrutinized and verified before being accepted. There are some specific examples of 'scientific' research strongly pressured by political or economic motives to reach a certain conclusion:

Is tobacco harmless or should we shut down the industry?
Is global warming so serious that it justifies world government?
Does my new drug cure everything from cancer to the common cold with no harmful side effects?

Again, the problem isn't science, but the pressure, and the people who yield to the pressure instead of the truth.

Answer 4

Science is just a way of being sure of what you know and how you know it. The *only* thing that will get you anywhere in science is having new ideas. That isn't to say that there aren't abuses, like corporations funding research designed to make their products look good, or well-entrenched professors discouraging research that threatens to upstage them. Some sponsors have been guilty of suppressing results not to their liking. But more often, the people complaining about the "scientific establishment" are those whose ideas can't survive close examination.

Answer 5

No it doesn't. New discoveries do not have to be approved by any community. They're just there. Science in fact provides a base on which new discoveries are founded.

Answer 6

Science doesn't. People do.