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Line 116: − In addition, Ayn Rand saw the apparent dichotomy between "pure" and "applied" science as a false one, and suggested that if any principle of science could be valuable to man, then some ''private'' individual or group would be willing to fund it. Robert Stadler is a type of any scientist who fails to realize that, who thinks that private funding is somehow dishonorable merely because it ''is'' private, and furthermore, that applied science is somehow dishonorable because it ''is'' applied to the problems that real human beings deal with every day. Such a person very often forgets that public funding can often lead to the creation of instruments of tyranny and death, because after all, the government is that institution having a monopoly on the initiation of force.+ − + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
→Typology
Furthermore, Robert Stadler is another type: of the [[university]] [[professor]], with [[professor values]] to match. True, he did not have a full faculty appointment while at the Institute. At best, he was an adjunct professor at nearby [[Dartmouth College]]. But a professor is a professor, and professor values are professor values.
Furthermore, Robert Stadler is another type: of the [[university]] [[professor]], with [[professor values]] to match. True, he did not have a full faculty appointment while at the Institute. At best, he was an adjunct professor at nearby [[Dartmouth College]]. But a professor is a professor, and professor values are professor values.
Perhaps the most important thing that motivates Robert Stadler is revenge. Rand does not lay out the social context of Stadler's early schooling. But clues to that context abound. He "ha[s] no talent or taste for dealing with people." As a corollary to this, he has no friends. He accepts accelerated schooling, and publishes his seminal work while very young. His great achievement is in a purely abstract area of science, for which most people see no practical application—though Floyd Ferris sees such an application, and develops it to its chilling fullest. Finally, the Institute itself is not so much a laboratory as a ''temple''—the Temple of Robert Stadler, though he takes pains to show off how modest his office is (nothing but a cheap desk, a filing cabinet, two chairs, and a chalkboard).
[[John Galt]] provides a direct contrast to Robert Stadler. Galt keeps and runs his own laboratory, at his own expense. Then he publishes his discoveries ''for a price'' in the form of lectures to industrialists who could use his discoveries in their own industries. So naturally Galt turns his research to questions that might have a practical application. In a society much larger than Galt's Gulch, Galt would publish and sell a journal for the same readership.
This is the profile of the classic nerd. One might logically suppose that the "jocks" in his high school routinely crammed him into a locker in the dressing room of the school's [[gymnasium]]. From that experience, and from the failure of the school faculty and administration to intervene effectively, came a desire for two things:
#Isolation from the "great unwashed," the ''hoi polloi'' ([[Greek]] for "the many"), the blobs of humanity whose concerns never interested him in the slightest.
#Revenge against those who tormented him before he reached college.
Stadler's incoherent babblings to John Galt in New York, before he dashes off to Dunkertown to take over [[Project X]], reveal what he really thinks about people: "bloody, grubbing pigs!" He is ostensibly talking about [[Mr. Thompson]] and his cronies. He is actually talking about ''all'' people, in ''or out'' of government and politics. He makes ''no'' distinction, in short, between an Orren Boyle and a Hank Rearden. To Stadler, they're all alike. And that is why, when he realizes that he must flee, he decides to seize Project X and take the ultimate revenge.
Little does he realize that someone else might have the same idea. And once he sees that someone else in action, he convinces himself that his science alone can triumph over him, because he knows how to operate the Xylophone effectively and the other person doesn't. (That the Xylophone would have such a ridiculously complex control system is further testimony to a technocrat's preference for secret formulas and procedures over "user friendship.") Stadler might also be seeing more than "his final product": he is seeing the same sort of "jock" who used to stuff him into a locker in the gymnasium. Now he tries to fight back, and he is worse than too late. The fight ends by destroying them both.
Finally, Ayn Rand saw the apparent dichotomy between "pure" and "applied" science as a false one, and suggested that if any principle of science could be valuable to man, then some ''private'' individual or group would be willing to fund it. Robert Stadler is a type of any scientist who fails to realize that, who thinks that private funding is somehow dishonorable merely because it ''is'' private, and furthermore, that applied science is somehow dishonorable because it ''is'' applied to the problems that real human beings deal with every day. Such a person very often forgets that public funding can often lead to the creation of instruments of tyranny and death, because after all, the government is that institution having a monopoly on the initiation of force. But before that, he ''also'' forgets, or never learns, that ''trade'' is the correct basis for human relationships, and that he ''does'' have something to trade.
[[John Galt]] provides a direct contrast to Robert Stadler. Galt keeps and runs his own laboratory, at his own expense. He shares his science in one of two ways:
#He publishes his discoveries ''for a price'' in the form of lectures to industrialists who could use his discoveries in their own industries. So naturally Galt turns his research to questions that might have a practical application. In a society much larger than Galt's Gulch, Galt would publish and sell a journal for the same readership.
#He is also an ''inventor''. An inventor must grasp not only a principle of abstract science, but ''also'' a way to make that principle ''concretely'' useful. [[Thomas Edison]] understood that, and so did [[Benjamin Franklin]]. Edison especially worked out a way to offer people things of value, to help fund other projects that turned out to have even greater importance.
But this illustrates another serious problem with scientific research today. No scientist, who has published anything for commercial sale, may publish the same research in any "peer-reviewed" journal. (Walter F. Brown, of the Center for scientific Creation, has this very problem with his own work.) Thus the mind-body dichotomy rears its ugly head, even in editorial decision-making.
But this illustrates another serious problem with scientific research today. No scientist, who has published anything for commercial sale, may publish the same research in any "peer-reviewed" journal. (Walter F. Brown, of the Center for scientific Creation, has this very problem with his own work.) Thus the mind-body dichotomy rears its ugly head, even in editorial decision-making.