Absolute blinder of an article from (Lord) Dick Taverne in the Grauniad today. Simply a must read, cut out and paste, keep in your scrapbook sort of thing. Good science is good science, wherever it comes from and whatever the motivations or funding source of the scientist:

But in the end motives
are irrelevant to the validity of science. It does not matter if a
scientist wants to help mankind, get a new grant, win a Nobel prize or
increase the profits of her company. It does not matter whether a
researcher works for Monsanto or for Greenpeace. Results are no more to
be trusted if the researcher declares his values and confesses that he
beats his wife, believes in God, or is an Arsenal supporter. What
matters is that the work has been peer-reviewed, that the findings are
reproducible and that they last. If they do, they are good science. If
not, not. Science itself is value-free. There are objective truths in
science. We can now regard it as a fact that the Earth goes rounds the
sun and that Darwinism explains the evolution of species.

A
look at the history of science makes it evident how irrelevant the
values of scientists are. Newton’s passion for alchemy did not
invalidate his discovery of the laws of gravitation. To quote Professor
Fox of Rutger’s University: "How was it relevant to Mendel’s findings
about peas that he was a white, European monk? They would have been
just as valid if Mendel had been a Spanish-speaking, lesbian atheist."