Follow the money?

In Caveat Emptor: The best science money can buy, Ronald Bailey writes,

"Follow the money" is always a good rule when evaluating claims. If someone has a financial interest in something, there's always the possibility that their judgment might be somewhat biased...

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) acknowledges that science can benefit from business. But they also

claim that corporations use a range of tools to illegitimately influence science, including sponsoring research to put their products in the best light, downplaying and sometimes even suppressing inconvenient research findings, undermining health policy groups...and by sponsoring nonprofit groups to influence policy and the media...

CSPI wants scientists to disclose who funds their research before it is accepted for peer-reviewed publication. It also advises journalists to disclose the corporate funding of scientists they quote in their articles.

But the CSPI doesn't mind quoting the work of scientists who receive corporate support when it suits its own purposes.

The point is not that the research on which CSPI is relying ... is flawed, but that "follow the money" is not the only rule to adopt when considering scientific claims. Simply denouncing research as corporate-sponsored doesn't tell you whether that research is any good or not.

"The more a putative answer conforms to one's emotional needs, economic self interest, religious predilections, or political aspirations; the more group support and pressure there is to believe something; and the more those in authority wield their power in support of some answers and against others, the easier it may be to accept some answers and reject others and the harder it becomes for others to dissent," warned Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) in his keynote address at the CSPI conference. The congressman's advice applies not only to journalists and businesspeople, but to activists as well.

That's good as far as it goes, but if one always assumes "those in authority wield their power in support of some answers and against others", one can't believe anything.