4 ms·
The root problem is the reward system in academia. Even today, when the relevant players are discussing how to improve it, the question is always phrased as nee
by Vinnl 6y ago
The root problem is the reward system in academia. Even today, when the relevant players are discussing how to improve it, the question is always phrased as needing to find better ways to reward excellence.
If you want to reward excellence, you're by definition looking for the exceptional, the surprising. It might sound good, and surprising discoveries are necessary, but they're not the only thing that's good for science.
We need ways to recognise more than just exciting results; researchers should also be rewarded for robust contributions to the body of human knowledge.
(This is also why Plaudit.pub, a project I volunteer for, allows researchers to explicitly recognise robust or exciting work as separate qualities.)
- remus 6y ago> If you want to reward excellence, you're by definition looking for the exceptional, the surprising. It might sound good, and surprising discoveries are necessary, but they're not the only thing that's good for science. I think this depends a lot on how you define 'excellence'. I agree that currently 'excellence' == novel and interesting findings, but we could interpret it to mean 'excellent science' in the broader sense, where showing that another study fails to replicate, or getting a negative result, are equally important parts of the scientific process.