Research Career Reality 101 Like research? Curing cancer? Understanding the Big Bang, gravitational waves, black holes, dark matter, dark energy? Etc.? Well

Research Career Reality 101 Like research? Curing cancer? Understanding the Big Bang, gravitational waves, black holes, dark matter, dark energy? Etc.? Well, for a career doing such research, nearly always need money, financial support. Then, remember "He who pays the piper calls the tune." So, the source of the money has a lot of power over the research, the researcher, etc. So, the source of the money is interested in the research? Right? What they want is good research? They want to see good research? They will be thrilled by good research? 101 Lesson: Nope. In simple blunt terms, they don't care about the research. (1) They don't look into the research in detail -- likely wouldn't understand it even if they tried. (2) Similarly, they don't understand the value, especially the long term value, of the research. (3) Their view is that the research is all in the papers -- they want to see published papers. (4) But they don't read the papers, or even the abstracts of the papers, or even the press releases about the research or the papers. (5) For the papers, mostly they just count them, maybe with more weight for papers in highly respected journals. (6) They don't really like to count papers but prefer to look at prizes. Sure, the Nobel prize. An Abel prize. Etc. In simple terms, the people funding the research don't care about the research itself. So, what do they care about? How 'bout luster, status, prestige, good publicity. In simple terms, what they care about is close to just good politics. The researcher, then, has a career mostly in the service of politics. Then there is the role of the media: Good politics needs good media and can be killed off by bad media. The media, however, also isn't interested in research or the researcher. Instead the media wants ad revenue. For that they want eyeballs. For that they want shocking headlines. One of the best sources of shocking headlines is scandal. One of the best sources of scandal is anything about, I dare not say the word, it's a very dirty word, it's for adults only, S.E.X.!!! Don't say it out loud or in public!!!! So, for Sabatini, his career was ruined by the media that pushed a sex scandal. Then he had bad politics. Then the sources of the funding didn't get the good politics which was the real goal of their funding. So, no more funding. For the media, there is no effective due process. The people attacked by the media can't even get a Stalin Communist Party show trial. For a media attack, there's no effective appeal or ability to respond. Might be able to proceed with a long, expensive, high risk, low expected payoff legal effort. But even if win, and win big, there's no effective way to repair the damage done. In a basic sense, anyone in academics or research is a beggar. "Beggars can't be choosers" or beggars have very little power or financial security, etc. So, at least in the US, a career in academics or research is, in just two words, financially irresponsible. Or, don't do that.