After reading the article, I agree with Martin’s argument that research in general today is conducted for the benefit of those who can provide financial funding to researchers. Research is expensive (at least, in the real world outside academic grounds) and money talks, after all.
And it is a sad observation that professionals in different fields such as physics, math, and medicine look down on those who veer away from the tried-and-true methods in favor of alternative options because alternative options rarely have the solid expertise backing that the tried-and-true methods have. Many discoveries in science were found because alternative methods were tried as opposed to the traditional ones.
There is something that bothers me, though: more often than not, prestigious universities such as Duke or Harvard tend to get mentioned in the news whenever there is a research conducted and the results are presented. What about the non-prestigious universities? If they conduct research and they end up with interesting results, would they be given the same attention as the Ivy League schools? It seems like money talks here as well.
