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The scientific process, in its ideal form, is elegant: Ask a question, set up an objective test, and get an answer. Repeat. Science is rarely practiced to that ideal. But Copernicus believed in that ideal. So did the rocket scientists behind the moon landing.
But nowadays, our respondents told us, the process is riddled with conflict. Scientists say they're forced to prioritize self-preservation over pursuing the best questions and uncovering meaningful truths.
Today, scientists' success often isn't measured by the quality of their questions or the rigor of their methods. It's instead measured by how much grant money they win, the number of studies they publish, and how they spin their findings to appeal to the public.
Scientists often learn more from studies that fail. But failed studies can mean career death. So instead, they're incentivized to generate positive results they can publish. And the phrase "publish or perish" hangs over nearly every decision. It's a nagging whisper, like a Jedi's path to the dark side.
"Over time the most successful people will be those who can best exploit the system," Paul Smaldino, a cognitive science professor at University of California Merced, says.
Many scientists have had enough. They want to break this cycle of perverse incentives and rewards. They are going through a period of introspection, hopeful that the end result will yield stronger scientific institutions. In our survey and interviews, they offered a wide variety of ideas for improving the scientific process and bringing it closer to its ideal form.
Before we jump in, some caveats to keep in mind: Our survey was not a scientific poll. For one, the respondents disproportionately hailed from the biomedical and social sciences and English-speaking communities.
Many of the responses did, however, vividly illustrate the challenges and perverse incentives that scientists across fields face. And they are a valuable starting point for a deeper look at dysfunction in science today.
The 7 problems identified are:
1) Academia has a huge money problem
2) Too many studies are poorly designed
3) Replicating results is crucial — and rare
4) Peer review is broken
5) Too much science is locked behind paywalls
6) Science is poorly communicated
7) Life as a young academic is incredibly stressful
It seems to me, that, much of this is already known to most scientists. However, this cycle of publish or perish continues unabated. What do you think should be done to change this mindset ?
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12016710/science-challeges-research-funding-peer-review-process
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday July 18 2016, @07:25AM
I work at a teaching college, i.e., one that is supposed to be oriented to teaching practical skills, doing projects with industry, etc.. Even here, we have many of these problems:
1) Academia has a huge money problem
We are steadily increasing the number of students in each class, and reducing the number of courses required for a degree. This is an attempt to reduce costs. Strangely, the ratio of administrative to academic staff continues to increase, and the school spends a great deal of money on tools (like overblown SharePoint sites) to support the administrative staff.
4) Peer review is broken
I'll take this as the "publish or perish" point. Even as a teaching college, the accredidation agency expects to see publications. No one has yet managed to explain how this makes any sense. They - and upper management - want to have some easy KPI, and publications are it.
6) Science is poorly communicated
I disagree with this. Some people are interested in science (and engineering, and math, and...). Others are not. Those who are interested can find anything from pop-sci videos to obscure dissertations online.
7) Life as a young academic is incredibly stressful
I can't really speak to this, not being a "young" academic, and not being in the research rat-race (one of the reasons I chose to work at a teaching college). From prior experience, I can say that the eternal quest for funding is a problem - if you're in research, you spend too much time chasing funds; you can only chase those funds if you have publications, so most of the rest of your time you spend writing "MPI" (minimum publishable increment) papers. The actual amount of time you can spend doing science is far too small. This model is broken.
It seems to me that the problem is the surfeit of people pursuing advanced degrees, and then trying to go into academia. The current model is a rather brutal and inefficient way of filtering people out, after they have already invested a decade or more of their lives. It would be better to filter earlier: Drop the number of doctoral students by a factor of 10 or more. By the time someone achieves tenure in a research position, the position ought to come with funding. They should be able to do a certain amount of research without worrying about money.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.