Once the genie is out of the bottle, it isn’t easy to get it back in. The more that public­-­sector scientists become invested in the status quo—through industry grants, patents, and the like—the less likely they are to support reforms. Not so long ago, academics and government scientists insured that the basic building blocks of science were freely available to everyone. Today, the Columbia economist Richard Nelson points out, a sizable portion of this public knowledge is private property. Is this something that should—or even could—be reversed?

This is a pretty scary trend. Not only is valid science being privatized, there is also a great opportunity for a lot of junk science to be funded (i.e., Creationist "science"). The cornerstone of valid science is the free and independent exchange of information.