Sometimes I am left to wonder about the widespread criticism of science. Slow progress, broken publishing and career progression, terrible working conditions, p

Sometimes I am left to wonder about the widespread criticism of science. Slow progress, broken publishing and career progression, terrible working conditions, prestige farming, poor mental health and exploitation of students, fake data, statistical warcrimes, bullying, sexism, racism, elitism, harrassment... The question is, does any of this matter on a historical scale? Is Science doomed to fail? In 200 years, our descendants will probably look back at us with the same mix of condescension and slightly horrified fascination with which we view our 19th century counterparts. Our stupid scientific publishing system will be viewed similarly to the plumbing in London in the 1850s. The chimney sweep and the graduate student suffer similar plights. It is terrible, immoral, we should do better, but then this is always the case. On one level, our future descendants should be grateful - we eradicated small pox (that alone would be enough really, an unprecedented gift to all future humanity, a boundless alleviation of suffering), discovered antibiotics, greatly improved child mortality, invented quantum mechanics and relativity, drastically increased our computational capacity, left the planet for the first time, and connected almost everyone in the world. All of this under conditions considerably less ideal than they are today, despite still being far from desirable. Maybe that's all that matters? Science being Science will sort itself out most likely. We should mainly try to reduce the human suffering involved, and allow greater diveristy in how and where research is done.