Miles: I've agreed with most of Woj's points on this thread, but I've got to contest this one. It is not the social relations of capitalism per se that produce the conditions for creating knowledge; it is the (largely) public infrastructure in industrialized nations. --E.g., the role of the military and public universities in the creation of the internet, the role of basic research in universities in the creation of genetic screening and gene therapies, etc., etc. Sure, after the hard lifting is done, the capitalist entities swoop in and produce products and services that allow them to amass profits; however, the fundamental base for all that innovation is not capitalism. Rather, it is public funded and planned activity in the universities, military, and NGOs. In short, it is the application of socialist economic principles that made possible the vast accumulation of knowledge we have seen in the past few hundred years. Sure, the capitalists have amassed profits from the application of this publicly produced knowledge; that's what they do. However, the tremendous surplus produced by capitalist economic activity is the dependent variable, not the independent variable here.
[WS:] You are right. However, the point I was making is much simpler: science, above all, is a function of organizational resources rather than "smartness" of individual brains. And those organizational resources are a function of society's capability to produce enough surplus to maintain research labs, universities, the pool of research workers and their support staff, etc. Since "capitalism" (or "industrialization" or "modernism" or whatever other label one is inclined to use) unquestionably has superior surplus production capability than any other previously existing mode of production, "capitalism" ipso facto generates more resources to maintain scientific research than any other mode of production.
Your argument pertains to the organization of surplus distribution, which necessarily assumes that surplus has already been produced. Here, we are talking about "market" versus "hierarchies" (as some economic theorists put it) i.e. large, centralized organizations. There are good theoretical arguments why large centralized organizations work better than markets in the production of goods such as science or culture (cf. John Kenneth Galbraith), which I believe can be supported with empirical evidence.
In short, while I agree with your argument, I still think that we need to credit capitalism for its superior capacity of surplus production and accumulation.
Joanna and Ravi:
1. You seem to confuse medical practice with medical science. Science is, be definition, provisional and uncertain. Practice by its very nature cannot be that way - whatever it does, it is definite (one either applies X or Y), even if it is based on provisional scientific results. Therefore, practice and its potential errors do not reflect in any way on the validity of scientific method.
2. I get an impression that the way you approach the subject is a kind of pissing contest between the "West" and the "rest of the world." I understand it is an important element of national identity of many Third World nations - I saw that a lot when I lived in Poland for example. In the same way, Zionists see everything as a contest between Jews and gentiles, Black nationalists see everything as a conflict between black and white, and for that matter, Huntington, Hitch and Company see the world as a "clash of civilizations."
It is not possible to rationally argue with such a view, it is an interpretative frame of reference accepted as given and self-evident and thus beyond empirical falsification - but man, what a limited and narrow-minded perspective it is!
Wojtek