Top U.S. Scientific Misconduct Official Quits In Frustration With Bureaucracy

sandbagger writes "The director of the U.S. government office that monitors scientific misconduct in biomedical research has resigned after 2 years out of frustration with the 'remarkably dysfunctional' federal bureaucracy. Officials at the Office of Scientific Integrity spent 'exorbitant amounts of time' in meetings and generating data and reports to make their divisions look productive, David Wright writes. He huge amount of time he spent trying to get things done made much of his time at ORI 'the very worst job I have ever had.'"

Comments

Re:Been there.

[kilfarsnar]

We're so productive, but *what* are we producing and for *who*?

Great post. That's the million dollar question, right there. We certainly are propping up an outdated socio-economic system. But powerful people retain their power through this system. That's the obstacle I see. Otherwise we could all be working much less, have full employment and much more time for personal pursuits.

Re:Been there.

[50000BTU_barbecue]

My parents had a washing machine, television, radio, a car, a house, heating, food from a supermarket, paved roads, clean drinking water, municipal waste collection, etc... All this with one salary for a blue collar job with decent job security, benefits and a pension plan. That's what I'm talking about.

I'd gladly trade your "instant communications" (of mostly trivial garbage) for that. I walked to the library then, I can still do it now. I just don't understand why we accept diminishing returns for all these technologies except for a few people on top. Because they deserve it. Sure.

But I'm talking nonsense.

Re:Been there.

[drinkypoo]

Your "outdated socio-economic system" is someone else's "reality".

The reality is that as worker productivity has increased by orders of magnitude, worker pay adjusted for inflation has decreased sharply. There's no defense for that.