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Dysfunction In Modern Science?
eldavojohn writes "The editors of Infection and Immunity are sending a warning signal about modern science. Two editorials (1 and 2) published in the journal have given other biomedical researchers pause to ask if modern science is dysfunctional. Readers familiar with the state of academia may not be surprised but the claims have been presented today to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that level the following allegations: 'Incentives have evolved over the decades to encourage some behaviors that are detrimental to good science' and 'The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high profile journal, this is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior to salvage their career.' The data to back up such slanderous claims? 'In the past decade the number of retraction notices for scientific journals has increased more than 10-fold while the number of journals articles published has only increased by 44%.' At least a few of such retractions have been covered here."
When I was in grad school there were always grant-whore and PR scientists around. Everyone knew who they were. They were the Chicken Littles who were always proclaiming the end of the world if their pet project wasn't funded. They were always the first to run to the press with GREATLY exaggerated claims and alarmism if it served their purposes (especially when they were looking for political support with funding). Their "science" was far less about scientific method than their own financial self-interests (including getting the precious tenure that they all craved like little lapdogs).
Of course, I have a friend who still won't accept that this EVER happens. "Science would never allow that," he says. His naivete is so endearing.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
For some reason, people defend publish-or-perish and systems that evaluate researchers based on the quantity of work or the names of journals or conferences where they have presented their work.
Palm trees and 8
...but people forget that "scientists" are not "science", they are simply people using the tools of science to seek the kind of knowledge that the scientific method and process can produce. As such they are subject to all of the same pressures, hopes, dreams, failures, etc. that the rest of us are.
But the process of science itself will always move forward, since science is only about reproducible experiments, so no matter how much bad (human) behavior might get involved, eventually the "truth" will win out. But the bad behavior can of course be extremely damaging to the process.
So there's nothing wrong with "science" or even its application I think. There are probably economic incentives that are promoting behaviors that affect the short-term reliability and the long-term costs of gaining useful scientific knowledge though, and hopefully we can come up with ways of improving the meta-processes.
G.
The high profile journals weed out sensationalist claims more often than not (part of being high-profile is having a finely tuned bullshit meter). The number of retractions are also a sign of strength, as the mechanisms forcing people to correct their errors are getting better. This isn't to claim that the process doesn't have room for improvement, but the cited examples are rubbish.
In my head the summary read "Modern science is dysfuctional, claims several modern scientists. See attached scientific statistics for details."