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There's a comment below about Da Vinci, but I'd say that the problem claimed in this article has been around since Archimedes yelled "Eureka" in his bath. The w
by ckemere 6y ago
There's a comment below about Da Vinci, but I'd say that the problem claimed in this article has been around since Archimedes yelled "Eureka" in his bath. The way science has tried to protect itself has always been when research is published, not when it was funded. But it's also a mistake to think that funders have that much influence on research. Scientists usually study what they want and there's been thousands of years of attempts to develop systems to try force them to study what they're paid for that are still not completely effective.
Where did Epstein get his unfortunate ideas? From other scientists! Young researchers very early learn that their main task is the same as start up founders - to inspire people they talk with about their research in order take their money (or recruit them to the lab). I think that truth and societal value are often easiest to convey but obviously not always.
- joe_the_user 6y agoThere's a comment below about Da Vinci, but I'd say that the problem claimed in this article has been around since Archimedes yelled "Eureka" in his bath. The way science has tried to protect itself has always been when research is published, not when it was funded. This unfortunately comment is filled with bad and dubious comment but this seems notably deceptive. Society has to various extents aimed to protect itself from the very worst behavior and the worst people - and has succeed in to a rather spotty extent, certainly. Still, every stage of science has involved some filtering out of the bad and worst. The increase in science's scale has lessened the degree to which a scientist had to be "respectable" but added filters like objective grant criteria, etc. Still, there's no way a single filtering method can work. You can't count on publications to weed out determined frauds - science counts on a certain ethos from scientists (and counts now less than it should and suffers for this). Science needs a community of honesty and it's significant the number of commentators who can't understand this here.