I think you are missing the core of the problem- science is just too damn crowded. The intense up-or-out pressure coupled with the scarcity of jobs /resources incentivizes a lot of bad behavior. Perpetual soft-money positions force you to spend large portions of your time securing funding- if you fail to get it your career is over.
If a postdoc goes down a blind alley (after all, science is uncertain, lots of great ideas don’t pan out), its a career killer unless he can figure out some way to salvage the data (which might mean going on a p-value hunt, or it might be flat out data-manipulation and fraud),etc. The lack of jobs has everyone trying to work harder than everyone else, and seeking any edge they can get.
Even vaunted peer review has the wrong incentives- it might be a good way to vet work, but there are obvious bad incentives when you use it to apportion scarce funding. A rational reviewer will pan any work competing with his own.
Almost all of the institutions of science grew and matured during the cold war period of exponential funding growth. In the 70s, the funding slowed down and the institutions aren’t capable of adjusting.
I think you are missing the core of the problem- science is just too damn crowded. The intense up-or-out pressure coupled with the scarcity of jobs /resources incentivizes a lot of bad behavior. Perpetual soft-money positions force you to spend large portions of your time securing funding- if you fail to get it your career is over.
If a postdoc goes down a blind alley (after all, science is uncertain, lots of great ideas don’t pan out), its a career killer unless he can figure out some way to salvage the data (which might mean going on a p-value hunt, or it might be flat out data-manipulation and fraud),etc. The lack of jobs has everyone trying to work harder than everyone else, and seeking any edge they can get.
Even vaunted peer review has the wrong incentives- it might be a good way to vet work, but there are obvious bad incentives when you use it to apportion scarce funding. A rational reviewer will pan any work competing with his own.
Almost all of the institutions of science grew and matured during the cold war period of exponential funding growth. In the 70s, the funding slowed down and the institutions aren’t capable of adjusting.