Currently, the system can be gamed exactly as you say by publishing sloppy studies that falsely find a "real" effect. But editors and readers of the article wil

Currently, the system can be gamed exactly as you say by publishing sloppy studies that falsely find a "real" effect. But editors and readers of the article will look at and judge the methodology section. Sloppy experiments risk not being printed or cited. >Would people run shoddy experiments to get null results to undermine their rivals? In this case, the rival would be very much inclined to recreate the "null" experiment. >Could somebody pump out dozens of null publications to pad their CV and screw up h-indexes? Possibly, but would null publications be cited as often? Also, who's going to keep funding a researcher that mostly publishes null results?[0] [0] Besides agenda-driven "think tanks". Which is worrying itself.