ABSTRACT
Science commercialization directly applies the latest findings from scientific research into new products and services that are then advertised and sold in a capitalist market economy. Since the 1980s, science commercialization has increasingly become a major goal of many scientific researchers, which corresponds with the rise of neoliberalism as an extreme form of capitalism (Boggio, Ballabeni, & Hemenway, 2016; Holloway, 2015). Notably, the social system of science commercialization is in opposition to the philosophical and ethical foundations of “open” science with the historical mission of pursuing scientific research as the general pursuit of knowledge and promoting the free information exchange for the improvement of society (David, 2005; Evans 2010). The contrast between scientific society and neoliberal science commercialization is evident in the observation by R. K. Merton, a prominent scholar of scientific society, who stated, “The pursuit of science is culturally defined as being primarily a disinterested search for truth and only secondarily, a means of earning a livelihood” (Merton 1957, 26). The prioritization between truth and profit has direct implications for technical communication in the context of science commercialization. In the social system of science commercialization, information secrecy and selective communication of partial, even biased, data are common practice. Furthermore, the social system of science commercialization leads to a state of ignorance among individuals outside of a particular commercial organization due to only investigating topics that support commercialization and selectively disclosing limited information about a scientific product (Evans, 2010; Fernandez Pinto, 2015). Generally speaking, organizations of science commercialization only provide information that positively supports a product (unless required by law or litigation to disclose additional information). Due to the secrecy and distortion (or bias) of technical communication in science commercialization, scholars are 65concerned that future scientific progress will be impeded (David, 2005; Evans, 2010; McCain, 1991).
