Note that interests influence science without the necessity of conscious bias, since interests shape people s world views. Corporations fund a large amount of research, naturally enough the sorts of research that are likely to lead to corporate advantage. A large corporation can be considered to have a vested interest in certain types of research and certain results, because it has used these to build a position of power which it wishes to maintain. A pharmaceutical company, for example, has a strong interest in its best-selling drugs. It will fund research into drugs that it can patent and sell, but not into nonpatentable substances.
Governments are much like large corporations, funding research that serves their interests.
The military, a key part of the governmental apparatus, funds a great deal of research in weapons but very little in methods of nonviolent struggle such as strikes, boycotts, rallies, and non-cooperation. Governments, corporations, and other large organizations are typically structured as bureaucracies, with a hierarchy and division of labor. Bureaucratic elites resist challenges to their power and privilege even when changes would benefit the organization as a whole. For example, military commanders resisted military innovations such as accurate naval gunnery and the machine gun for decades because they upset normal organizational arrangements. Scientific research in corporations, governments, and universities is organized bureaucratically, to some extent.