international development
scientificactivist | October 22, 2007A few years ago, while I simultaneously enjoyed a mild Texas evening and a few beers with a second-year medical student, my idealistic and outspoken friend argued that as a society we spend way too much money on scientific research. That money should instead, she contended, be spent wholly and directly on fighting global poverty and disease.
I agreed that it should go without saying that improving the world's lot ought to be our number one priority: an ideal rarely realized due to the pernicious distractions of war, greed, nationalism, ideology, and a variety of other factors. Esoterically…