3 ms·

So what you're saying is essentially that the point of science is to advance careers, not to find insights and come closer to the truth? It may very well be tru

by hannob 11y ago

So what you're saying is essentially that the point of science is to advance careers, not to find insights and come closer to the truth? It may very well be true, but that would be a devastating account of the situation of today's science. And it would desperately need to be fixed.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
There are plenty in it just for the career, gaming the incentives of an imperfect system. But not all are like this, it is usually obvious (at least in my field) who is real and who is just collecting a check.
sdgsfsfgfg 11y ago
This is a devastating account of today's society.
stevetrewick 11y ago
I don't think the parent is saying that's what science is for, but rather that this is what the incentive structure currently looks like. We mythologise science and scientists as being above this, but they aren't. Incentives matter.
ProblemFactory 11y ago
No, and all scientists want everyone to find insights and come closer to truth. But the reality is that both the career advancement and funding for further experiments is almost entirely based on the number of publications in prestigious journals. And effort put into collecting data is not by itself publishable: you must add analysis, and very often analysis that successfully confirms a new hypothesis or invalidates previous beliefs to publish. Journals prefer to publish exciting results, and "we ran experiment X, and found no significant effects" is usually rejected. Fixing this is desperately needed, but so far nobody has come up with a solution that would actually fix this. A middle ground would be to require data publication after a certain time period. For example, NASA and ESA release original data 6-12 months after collection. Releasing original data together with the paper also works.
- ata_aman 11y ago
  Exactly. I think publishing the data _along_ your publication is the best way to go about it.
- eru 11y ago
  > Fixing this is desperately needed, but so far nobody has come up with a solution that would actually fix this. Wouldn't rewarding people for `cites' of their dataset be a way to fix this? Ie if someone uses your data, they have to cite you, and that's just as good as someone citing an analysis paper.
teekert 11y ago
I agree with your idealism, so why don't you and I team up, forget earning a salary and just give away anything we come up with for others to use without restriction? That would be the ultimate way of advancing insights and coming closer to the truth... Edit: I'd love to actually, but perhaps I'll wait for the post scarcity, star trek economy to become mainstream.
rtl49 11y ago
I don't believe my comment could reasonably be interpreted in that light. I made no normative claims. I just stated what I believe to be the situation.
ggchappell 11y ago
No, of course he wasn't saying that. But there is a problem with the reward structure of the system. Scientists have to eat and pay the bills, too. Unless you're really rich, it's tough to do much serious science in your spare time on weekends, paying for equipment from your own pocket. So the idea is that a scientist gets a job that pays him/her to do science. The system rewards scientists who advance knowledge and penalizes those who do not. How do we determine whom to reward? It is extremely difficult to evaluate most scientists' work unless you are an expert in the same field. So we let peer reviewers evaluate the work, and reward scientists for publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. The problem is that these incentives work against some kinds of sharing. It's not all bad. A scientist whose work never sees the light of day is fired; no publications means no job. But sharing of ideas apart from those that are necessarily published is something the system tends to punish. What to do about it? It's easy to propose some radical revision of the system. But we still have to deal with the question of how to evaluate the work of someone whose ideas can only really be understood after a decade of specialized study.

by hannob 11y ago

seanmcdirmid 11y ago

There are plenty in it just for the career, gaming the incentives of an imperfect system. But not all are like this, it is usually obvious (at least in my field) who is real and who is just collecting a check.

sdgsfsfgfg 11y ago

This is a devastating account of today's society.

stevetrewick 11y ago

I don't think the parent is saying that's what science is for, but rather that this is what the incentive structure currently looks like. We mythologise science and scientists as being above this, but they aren't. Incentives matter.

ProblemFactory 11y ago

No, and all scientists want everyone to find insights and come closer to truth. But the reality is that both the career advancement and funding for further experiments is almost entirely based on the number of publications in prestigious journals. And effort put into collecting data is not by itself publishable: you must add analysis, and very often analysis that successfully confirms a new hypothesis or invalidates previous beliefs to publish. Journals prefer to publish exciting results, and "we ran experiment X, and found no significant effects" is usually rejected. Fixing this is desperately needed, but so far nobody has come up with a solution that would actually fix this. A middle ground would be to require data publication after a certain time period. For example, NASA and ESA release original data 6-12 months after collection. Releasing original data together with the paper also works.

ata_aman 11y ago
Exactly. I think publishing the data _along_ your publication is the best way to go about it.
eru 11y ago
> Fixing this is desperately needed, but so far nobody has come up with a solution that would actually fix this. Wouldn't rewarding people for `cites' of their dataset be a way to fix this? Ie if someone uses your data, they have to cite you, and that's just as good as someone citing an analysis paper.

teekert 11y ago

I agree with your idealism, so why don't you and I team up, forget earning a salary and just give away anything we come up with for others to use without restriction? That would be the ultimate way of advancing insights and coming closer to the truth... Edit: I'd love to actually, but perhaps I'll wait for the post scarcity, star trek economy to become mainstream.

rtl49 11y ago

I don't believe my comment could reasonably be interpreted in that light. I made no normative claims. I just stated what I believe to be the situation.

ggchappell 11y ago

No, of course he wasn't saying that. But there is a problem with the reward structure of the system. Scientists have to eat and pay the bills, too. Unless you're really rich, it's tough to do much serious science in your spare time on weekends, paying for equipment from your own pocket. So the idea is that a scientist gets a job that pays him/her to do science. The system rewards scientists who advance knowledge and penalizes those who do not. How do we determine whom to reward? It is extremely difficult to evaluate most scientists' work unless you are an expert in the same field. So we let peer reviewers evaluate the work, and reward scientists for publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. The problem is that these incentives work against some kinds of sharing. It's not all bad. A scientist whose work never sees the light of day is fired; no publications means no job. But sharing of ideas apart from those that are necessarily published is something the system tends to punish. What to do about it? It's easy to propose some radical revision of the system. But we still have to deal with the question of how to evaluate the work of someone whose ideas can only really be understood after a decade of specialized study.