> This is antithetical to science. If you're promising a breakthrough discovery, you're approaching the experiment with bias. That's not true. In fact it's pro

> This is antithetical to science. If you're promising a breakthrough discovery, you're approaching the experiment with bias. That's not true. In fact it's probably the opposite of true! You do experiments specifically because you have some a priori reason to think that this experiment will tell you something interesting. In fact, one of the major ways scientists are trying to deal with the replication crisis is pre-registering their methodologies and expectations of experiments. Which isn't to say it's not a good idea to do fundamental research, but it's absolutely valid to try and consider where funding should go based on what we expect to get from experiments. Of course, I think the current process is pretty bad, since it relies so much on theatrics, as the OP mentioned. But I agree with OP here, at least in what should happen - physicists shouldn't hype or over-promise what an experiment can deliver. I just wish we lived in a world which valued these kinds of fundamental results enough to agree to support them financially!