An interesting piece over on the Computational Complexity blog about a theorhetical situation where academics/researches take drugs to improve their performance. Lance draws the obvious parallel to drug testing in sports and asks the obvious question – “why should professional athletes be held to a different standard than professional academics?”.
Everyone likes to think that you can have one rule for everyone, but the reality is thats just not the case. In this instance most people working in sciences are ultimately working for human advancement, although I am sure its a case of three steps forward one step back from time to time.
In athletics the game is very much about competition with ourselves, and in the spirit of competition its best not to use drugs. Although – if everyone had access to the same drugs then would that be OK?
Dunno. I guess the answer depends on how much we care about the long term health of our athletes? Do we not care about the long term health of our academics and researchers?