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> every dishonest scientist or professor is taking up a position and funding that could've instead gone to any of surely numerous people with much more integrit

by NiloCK 3y ago

> every dishonest scientist or professor is taking up a position and funding that could've instead gone to any of surely numerous people with much more integrity. Maybe, maybe not. It feels possible at this point that the entire top of the competitive curve is actively juicing. Ie, with such fierce competition, there could be a vanishingly small cohort of researchers who both operate with integrity and whose CVs are competitive for faculty positions. At best, we might expect a removed fraud to be replaced with someone marginally more honest.

medstrom 3y ago
To get more good research done, there are at least two different fronts we could fight on. The straightforward one is to reduce incentive to fake at the "top of the competitive curve", somehow. But the total population of researchers is still so small, it might not be the most important front. The other front is to let the fakers keep faking, but change society so that everyone who wants to research out of personal interest has the free time to do so. They'll have less incentive to fake.
neilv 3y ago
> there could be a vanishingly small cohort of researchers who both operate with integrity and whose CVs are competitive for faculty positions. I think it's fallacious to compare the CV "competitiveness" of a falsifying 'scientist' with a legitimate scientist. Not that that's what you were suggesting, but maybe we haven't fully accepted what it means to combine the typical daisy-chained/chain-reaction growth of CV opportunities (one prestigious-looking line item opens a door to one or more others), with cheating offering additional boosts as needed at each step. When an athlete "juices", they can perform with greater strength or endurance. But when a scientist falsifies research, they aren't performing greater science -- they're performing greater CV (and terrible science). Competition for faculty positions shouldn't be CV, but the potential for great science. If an institution wants to use CV as the proxy for science potential, then they have to address that the CV metric is being gamed like crazy, including by falsifying (i.e., terrible) scientists.
gmd63 3y ago
Just as everyone in the Tour de France was doping during the Lance Armstrong era, the concentration of cheaters increases the higher up the "success" metrics you go. Because cheating without getting caught will always be the "best" strategy within the confines of the game alone. However, that's likely the worst strategy for society as a whole.

by NiloCK 3y ago

medstrom 3y ago

To get more good research done, there are at least two different fronts we could fight on. The straightforward one is to reduce incentive to fake at the "top of the competitive curve", somehow. But the total population of researchers is still so small, it might not be the most important front. The other front is to let the fakers keep faking, but change society so that everyone who wants to research out of personal interest has the free time to do so. They'll have less incentive to fake.

neilv 3y ago

> there could be a vanishingly small cohort of researchers who both operate with integrity and whose CVs are competitive for faculty positions. I think it's fallacious to compare the CV "competitiveness" of a falsifying 'scientist' with a legitimate scientist. Not that that's what you were suggesting, but maybe we haven't fully accepted what it means to combine the typical daisy-chained/chain-reaction growth of CV opportunities (one prestigious-looking line item opens a door to one or more others), with cheating offering additional boosts as needed at each step. When an athlete "juices", they can perform with greater strength or endurance. But when a scientist falsifies research, they aren't performing greater science -- they're performing greater CV (and terrible science). Competition for faculty positions shouldn't be CV, but the potential for great science. If an institution wants to use CV as the proxy for science potential, then they have to address that the CV metric is being gamed like crazy, including by falsifying (i.e., terrible) scientists.

gmd63 3y ago

Just as everyone in the Tour de France was doping during the Lance Armstrong era, the concentration of cheaters increases the higher up the "success" metrics you go. Because cheating without getting caught will always be the "best" strategy within the confines of the game alone. However, that's likely the worst strategy for society as a whole.