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They say "medicine". I would say science in general, perhaps we could generalise even further to "any human activity is full of unethical people trying to explo

They say "medicine". I would say science in general, perhaps we could generalise even further to "any human activity is full of unethical people trying to exploit it". But 25%!? That suggest there is a big problem with how we "do science". Unfortunately I have no solution to the problem. Publishing everything (including raw data) for every research would probably help somewhat, but only teams repeating experiments/trials would ensure it. I wonder if we suddenly took 10% of all money spent on science (let's say in medicine) and instead of novel research we used it to redo randomly chosen previous research. Would we loose or gain in terms of new cures? And if we gained, what if we spent 15%, or 25%? That's a great idea for a scientific study to find a point of diminishing returns on "research verification". Would someone please write a research grant request for this?

davidktr 3y ago
Of course there are big problems with how we do science. Much of it is garbage. Imagine most software was written by junior engineers, without any code review or input from seniors. That is today's science. Most scientific legwork is done by absolute beginners, i.e., graduate students. They often lack a support structure to focus on what they have learned so far. Most of the world is not Oxbridge, MIT, Stanford. Where are the beginners' supervisors, you might ask? Chasing the latest trend to secure funding. Pondering how their line of research can be formulated as buzzword-du-jour markov chain. Ass kissing the dean to get department funding. Having worked in research for 15 years, I am certain about two things: (1) The scientific method yields better results than doing things freehand. (2) Randomly axing 50% of academia would improve the situation.
bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
That 10% investment would have a huge payoff too because it would shut down avenues that were only opened due to p-hacking long before they'd had a chance to seek further investment.

davidktr 3y ago

Of course there are big problems with how we do science. Much of it is garbage. Imagine most software was written by junior engineers, without any code review or input from seniors. That is today's science. Most scientific legwork is done by absolute beginners, i.e., graduate students. They often lack a support structure to focus on what they have learned so far. Most of the world is not Oxbridge, MIT, Stanford. Where are the beginners' supervisors, you might ask? Chasing the latest trend to secure funding. Pondering how their line of research can be formulated as buzzword-du-jour markov chain. Ass kissing the dean to get department funding. Having worked in research for 15 years, I am certain about two things: (1) The scientific method yields better results than doing things freehand. (2) Randomly axing 50% of academia would improve the situation.

bobbylarrybobby 3y ago

That 10% investment would have a huge payoff too because it would shut down avenues that were only opened due to p-hacking long before they'd had a chance to seek further investment.