Useless mountain of paperwork

Pummelled by paperwork.

Most academic research laboratories are in a precarious position. Everyone—from university presidents to politicians to the public—expects them to come up with new insights that can be exploited for economic growth. However, without sufficient resources, few laboratories are able to do so, and the growing competition for limited research money makes it increasingly difficult to secure adequate ...

First : Cut the Paperwork

In our national debate on health-care reform, an ethical climate is developing that denies whole categories of health-care services to one group of citizens or another. In response to this disturbing trend, a leading group of ethicists and physicians, chaired by the author, gathered to suggest a new moral guideline for health-care reform. In our statement, “Core Values in Health-Care Reform: A ...

Useless Disinfection

A useless raffle.

A mailed questionnaire was sent to 2712 subjects asking about respiratory symptoms, and a raffle for three prizes of 50 pounds, 30 pounds, and 20 pounds was organised. The response rate in the 1762 who were told about the raffle was no higher than for 950 subjects who served as controls.

[The usefulness of useless knowledge].

r IT not a curious fact that in a world steeped in irrational hatreds which threaten civilization itself, men and women-old and young-detach themselves wholly or partly from the angry current of daily life to devote themselves to the cultivation of beauty, to the extension of knowledge, to the cure of disease, to the amelioration of suffering, just as though fanatics were not simultaneously eng...