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As a scientist who has published in the neuroscience space, I don’t what to say other than the incentives in academia are all messed up. Back in the late 90s, N

As a scientist who has published in the neuroscience space, I don’t what to say other than the incentives in academia are all messed up. Back in the late 90s, NIH made a big push on ‘translational research”, that is, researchers were strongly encouraged to demonstrate their research had immediate, real world benefits or applications. Basic research and the careful, plodding research needed to nail down and really answer a narrow question was discouraged as academic navel-gazing. On one hand, it seems the push for immediate real world relevance is a good thing. We fund research in order that society will benefit, correct? On the other hand, since publications and ultimately funding decisions are based on demonstrating real world relevance, it’s little surprise scientists are now highly incentivized to hype their research, p-hack their results, or in rare cases, commit outright fraud in an attempt to demonstrate this relevance. Doing research that has immediate translational benefits is a tall order. As a scientist you might accomplish this feat a few times in your career if you’re lucky. The rest of the corpus of your work should consist of the careful, mundane research the actual translational research will be based upon. Unfortunately it’s hard to get that foundational, basic, research published and funded nowadays, hence the messed-up incentives.

derbOac 2y ago
There's evidence that the turning point was in the 90s but I suspect the real underlying problem is indirect funds as a revenue stream for universities, combined with the imposition of a for-profit business model expectation from politicians at the state and other levels. The expectation changed from "we fund universities to teach and do research" to "universities should generate their own income", which isn't really possible with research, so federal funding filled the gap. This lead to the indirect fund firehose of cash, pyramid scheme labs, and so forth and so on. It sort of became a feedback loop, and now we are where we are today. Translational research is probably part of it but I think it's part of a broader hype and fad machine tied to medicine, which has its own problems related to rent-seeking, regulatory capture, and monopolies, among other things. It's one giant behemoth of corruption fed by systemic malstructurings, like a biomedical-academic complex of problematic intertwined feedback loops. I say this as someone whose entire career has very much been part of all of it at some level.
- BenFranklin100 2y ago
  Good points, thanks. As I’m sure you’re aware, the indirect rates at some universities are above 90%. That is, for every dollar that directly supports the research, almost another dollar goes to the university for overhead. Much of this overhead is legitimate: facilities and equipment expenses, safety training, etc… but I suspect a decent portion of it goes to administrative bloat, just as much as the education-only part of the university has greatly increased administrative bloat over the last 30-40 years. Another commentator made a separate point about how professors don’t always get paid a lot, but they make it up in reputation. Ego is a huge motivator for many people, especially academics in my observation. Hubris plays no small part in the hype machine surrounding too many labs.

derbOac 2y ago

There's evidence that the turning point was in the 90s but I suspect the real underlying problem is indirect funds as a revenue stream for universities, combined with the imposition of a for-profit business model expectation from politicians at the state and other levels. The expectation changed from "we fund universities to teach and do research" to "universities should generate their own income", which isn't really possible with research, so federal funding filled the gap. This lead to the indirect fund firehose of cash, pyramid scheme labs, and so forth and so on. It sort of became a feedback loop, and now we are where we are today. Translational research is probably part of it but I think it's part of a broader hype and fad machine tied to medicine, which has its own problems related to rent-seeking, regulatory capture, and monopolies, among other things. It's one giant behemoth of corruption fed by systemic malstructurings, like a biomedical-academic complex of problematic intertwined feedback loops. I say this as someone whose entire career has very much been part of all of it at some level.

BenFranklin100 2y ago
Good points, thanks. As I’m sure you’re aware, the indirect rates at some universities are above 90%. That is, for every dollar that directly supports the research, almost another dollar goes to the university for overhead. Much of this overhead is legitimate: facilities and equipment expenses, safety training, etc… but I suspect a decent portion of it goes to administrative bloat, just as much as the education-only part of the university has greatly increased administrative bloat over the last 30-40 years. Another commentator made a separate point about how professors don’t always get paid a lot, but they make it up in reputation. Ego is a huge motivator for many people, especially academics in my observation. Hubris plays no small part in the hype machine surrounding too many labs.