Editing Big science (section)

== Criticism ==
The era of Big Science has provoked criticism that it undermines the basic principles of the [[scientific method]].<ref>[[Alvin M. Weinberg]], director of [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]], writing in ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'' in 1961, quoted in Stefan Theil, "Trouble in Mind: Two years in, a $1-billion-plus effort to simulate the human brain is in disarray. Was it poor management, or is something fundamentally wrong with Big Science?", ''[[Scientific American]]'', vol. 313, no. 4 (October 2015), p. 38.</ref>  Increased government funding has often meant increased [[military funding of science|military funding]], which some claim subverts the [[The Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]]-era ideal of science as a pure quest for knowledge.  For example, historian [[Paul Forman (historian)|Paul Forman]] has argued that during [[World War II]] and the [[Cold War]], the massive scale of defense-related funding prompted a shift in physics from basic to applied research.<ref>Forman, Paul.  "Behind quantum electronics: National security as basis for physical research in the United States, 1940-1960," ''Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences'', Vol. 18, Pt. 1, 1987, pp 149-229.</ref>

Many scientists also complain that the requirement for increased funding makes a large part of the scientific activity filling out grant requests and other budgetary bureaucratic activity, and the intense connections between academic, governmental, and industrial interests have raised the question of whether scientists can be completely objective when their research contradicts the interests and intentions of their benefactors.

In addition, widespread sharing of scientific knowledge is necessary for rapid progress for both basic and applied sciences.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/health/research/13alzheimer.html|title=Sharing of Data Leads to Progress on Alzheimer's|first=Gina|last=Kolata|newspaper=The New York Times |date=13 August 2010|access-date=24 August 2017|archive-date=13 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170813194458/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/health/research/13alzheimer.html|url-status=live}}</ref> However the sharing of data can be impeded for a number of reasons. For example, scientific findings can be classified by military interests or patented by corporate ones. Grant competitions, while they stimulate interest in a topic, can also increase secretiveness among scientists because application evaluators may value uniqueness more than incremental, collaborative inquiry.