There is a point rarely mentioned but likely important: Academic research is highly competitive. Doing well in an academic career is essentially the same as d

There is a point rarely mentioned but likely important: Academic research is highly competitive. Doing well in an academic career is essentially the same as doing well in the competition. In particular, the Federal government, Congress, the NSF and NIH don't have to check the quality of the work closely for each grant because the academic system will check the quality before a researcher gets progress in their career.