Those are engineers, not scientists. Even at that, the whole purpose of the patent system is to publicize developments while protecting those who create it for a short time.
For my part I don't see much of one. In all cases one attempts to learn true facts about the world via careful analysis of data and experiment - the label is just for potential employers.
>So I guess you criticize every corporation who hires scientists to work on proprietary products? Elon Musk is such a fiend!
Then it's not science. If the scientific community does not participate it's maybe development. There is nothing wrong with it.
But there is something wrong if the public sectors stop doing science and get's castrated to be a thinktank for the current administration.
So I guess you criticize every corporation who hires scientists to work on proprietary products? Elon Musk is such a fiend!
Look, a much better way to accomplish this is robust intellectual freedom. Rather than expecting every individual scientist to be able to say anything they want, regardless of employer, create a system where any scientist who hasn't chosen to be muzzled can state controversial ideas and expect them to be received with only intellectual criticism. You need far more than just legal protection, you also need a culture where dissenters are tolerated and not socially shunned.
You also need a culture where replication and debunking are given equal respect to finding novel results. The unfortunate fact is that if someone publishes a new result, that gets vastly less prestige than if they replicate (or fail to) an existing study, or spot statistical flaws in someone else's work.