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Implicit in your comment is that once upon a time things were different. That is not at all clear to me. Rather, science, government, public health, etc have al
by kspacewalk2 5y ago
Implicit in your comment is that once upon a time things were different. That is not at all clear to me. Rather, science, government, public health, etc have always been largely a mess, and whatever you conjure up in your idealized view of "the good old days" in those human endeavours is just good old fashioned selection bias.
- blip54321 5y agoIn academia, things were different. Science didn't really get like this until tenure became hyper-competitive. In the early days of the British tradition, science was a leisurely task by nobles. After WWII, academia was expanding rapidly, and there was a shortage of professors. Academic jobs were easy to come by. The strong incentives to cheat is very new in academia. I've seen academia for about a quarter-century, and at least MIT went from a pretty honest place to a shark tank full of crooks. That's not a general "the world was once better," but a very specific "academic fraud has grown out-of-control in the past 25 years."
- dekhn 5y agoThe other big change happened when Clinton doubled the NIH budget in the 90s. This made a lot more room for shark tanks full of crooks (sadly).