The further you dig, the more signs there are that this seminal event (climategate) was inevitable for a long time coming. I was just reading Eisenhower’s famous farewell address. This is, of course, famous for the bit taken out of all context about the “military-industrial complex”. The entire address can be found here.

After he talks about the military industrial complex, which was not a warning about capitalism, but a warning about crony capitalism, he goes on to say:

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

This was delivered in 1961. President Eisenhower foresaw this train wreck that was to occur 48 years later. He warned us.

-snork