7 ms·

I've heard of Chris but not too well. This guy does not f*c$ around, don't get on his bad side. The state of research is dire at the moment. The whole ecosyste

I've heard of Chris but not too well. This guy does not f*c$ around, don't get on his bad side. The state of research is dire at the moment. The whole ecosystem is cooked. Reproducibility is non-existent. This obvious cartel is a symptom and there should be exemplary punishment. Publishers are commercially incentivized to simply maximize profit and engagement. The main actors are academics and most of them try to uphold the high standards and ethics. Yes there is free-riding, backstabbing and a lot of politics but there is also reputation and honesty. A few academics give academia a bad name, at the worst possible time and when society needs honest, reliable, reproducible and targetted research the most.

Freak_NL 7mo ago
I have no doubt that there are honest academics who publish research which actually contributes to humanity's corpus of knowledge. Whether that is some new insight into the past, observations on nature and man's interaction with it, clever chemical advances, or medical innovations which benefit mankind. People who publish works which will be looked upon as seminal and foundational in a decade or two, but also works which just focus on some particular detail and which will be of use to many researchers in the future. But I can't shake the impression that a lot, perhaps the vast majority, of science consists of academics (postdocs and untenured researchers in particular I suppose) stuck in the publish-or-perish cycle. Pushing pointless papers where some trivial hypothesis is tested and which no one will ever use or read — except perhaps to cite for one reason or another, but rarely because it makes academic sense. Now with added slop, because why wouldn't you if the work itself is already as good as pointless? The system, as you say, is fucked.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 7mo ago
  Most scientists want to do good science. They get intrinsic meaning and satisfaction in doing so. But with any large group of people there will be a few bad faith actors that will manipulate any exploit in the system for their own personal benefit. The problem here is that 'the system' of academic appointments, and even more importantly, funding sources, are built around this publishing metric. This forces even the good faith scientists to behave poorly because it was a requisite to even being able to exist as a working researcher.
- tstactplsignore 7mo ago
  0. I think your perspective is really detached from the actual scientific enterprise. I think this kind of take exists when there are cultural clashes combined with a strong focus in the media and online with the mistakes and issues in science, not its successes. Science is actually progressing at an amazing rate in recent years. We are curing diseases and understanding more about life and the universe faster than ever. Just briefly skim some top journals right now: Here's an amazing 'universal vaccine' for respiratory viruses in mice https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea1260 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea1260 here are brand new genome editors in human cells https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1884 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1884 Here's amazing evidence of an ancient lake on Mars https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu8264 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu8264 Here's a meta-analysis of 62 (!) different studies on GLP1 receptor agonists to figure out whether they can contribute to pancreatitis https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/edm2.70113 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/edm2.70113 (covered here https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00552-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00552-6) Here's identification of a new mechanism of resistance in Malaria https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10110-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10110-9 Here's curing a genetic disorder using gene editing in mice https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10113-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10113-6 Here's a study that has figured out that as CO2 levels rise, there's less nitrogen in forests https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10039-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10039-5 and here's personalized mRNA vaccines curing people of breast cancer https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10004-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10004-2 Like all of these are just from the past month or two and are pretty astounding advances. And they are just a subset of all of the scientific advances recently. All of them have contributors in academia (and science performed outside of academia would not exist without academia, as it depends upon it for most of the conceptual advances as well of course as for scientist training). 1. Stuff like paper mills and complete fraudsters exist, but for the most part, these things are the exception, not the rule. Your average scientist doesn't even hear or think about these things and the weirdos who cause them, to be honest. Nobody has ever heard of "International Review of Financial Analysis" outside of an extremely niche economics subfield. 2. "Public or perish" is not a cycle, really. While I believe it's not good for people to be constantly working under pressure, the fact that academia is so competitive currently is a healthy sign. It's because we have so many people with extremely impressive resumes and backgrounds, doing extremely impressive work, that makes funding so competitive. And when funding is competitive, it's no wonder that funders prefer to fund people who have produced something and told the world about it ("publish"). 3. Fraudsters and hucksters have been in science forever. Go read an account of science in the early 19th century. There are tons and tons of stories of crazy scientists who believed ridiculous things, scientists who kept pushing wrong dogma, and so on. And yet nobody knows about them today, because the evolutionary process of science works: the truths that are empirically verifiable win out, and, given enough time, the failures are selected against.
Bengalilol 7mo ago
About Chris, this 3.5 years old post made me wonder what he's all about. https://www.chrisbrunet.com/p/this-princeton-economics-professor https://www.chrisbrunet.com/p/this-princeton-economics-profe...
- class3shock 7mo ago
  Liking free speech, disliking affirmative action, being critical of those he disagrees but also giving them a chance to respond. edit: is what he seems to be about based on the linked article
  - screenothethird 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - KPGv2 7mo ago
    Huh? The linked article is nothing more than "this guy is black, so therefore helping any underprivileged black people gain university admissions is bad" It's outrageous racism. A conclusion about all minorities based on one person's math mistake, where the logic is entirely based on shared skin color. If you replace the races and make it a conclusion about legacy admissions or something, it's obviously stupid and illogical, right? "This white guy doesn't know Afghanistan from Kazakhstan. More proof legacy admissions is bad!"
    - Spivak 7mo ago
      https://xkcd.com/385/ https://xkcd.com/385/ It's just this but with race this time.
      - BurningFrog 7mo ago
        Much has changed since this was published in 2008
    - class3shock 7mo ago
      Are we reading the same article? The focus is on a white woman.
Wobbles42 7mo ago
All of academic publishing has fallen victim to Goodhart's law. Our metrics for judging the quality of academic information are also the metrics for deciding the success of an academic's career. They are destined to be gamed. We either need to turn peer review into an adversarial system where the reviewer has explicit incentives to find flaws and can advance their career by doing it well, or else we need totally different metrics for judging publications (which will probably need to evolve continuously). We assume far too much good faith in this space.

Freak_NL 7mo ago

I have no doubt that there are honest academics who publish research which actually contributes to humanity's corpus of knowledge. Whether that is some new insight into the past, observations on nature and man's interaction with it, clever chemical advances, or medical innovations which benefit mankind. People who publish works which will be looked upon as seminal and foundational in a decade or two, but also works which just focus on some particular detail and which will be of use to many researchers in the future. But I can't shake the impression that a lot, perhaps the vast majority, of science consists of academics (postdocs and untenured researchers in particular I suppose) stuck in the publish-or-perish cycle. Pushing pointless papers where some trivial hypothesis is tested and which no one will ever use or read — except perhaps to cite for one reason or another, but rarely because it makes academic sense. Now with added slop, because why wouldn't you if the work itself is already as good as pointless? The system, as you say, is fucked.

Eddy_Viscosity2 7mo ago
Most scientists want to do good science. They get intrinsic meaning and satisfaction in doing so. But with any large group of people there will be a few bad faith actors that will manipulate any exploit in the system for their own personal benefit. The problem here is that 'the system' of academic appointments, and even more importantly, funding sources, are built around this publishing metric. This forces even the good faith scientists to behave poorly because it was a requisite to even being able to exist as a working researcher.
tstactplsignore 7mo ago
0. I think your perspective is really detached from the actual scientific enterprise. I think this kind of take exists when there are cultural clashes combined with a strong focus in the media and online with the mistakes and issues in science, not its successes. Science is actually progressing at an amazing rate in recent years. We are curing diseases and understanding more about life and the universe faster than ever. Just briefly skim some top journals right now: Here's an amazing 'universal vaccine' for respiratory viruses in mice https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea1260 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea1260 here are brand new genome editors in human cells https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1884 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1884 Here's amazing evidence of an ancient lake on Mars https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu8264 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adu8264 Here's a meta-analysis of 62 (!) different studies on GLP1 receptor agonists to figure out whether they can contribute to pancreatitis https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/edm2.70113 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/edm2.70113 (covered here https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00552-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00552-6) Here's identification of a new mechanism of resistance in Malaria https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10110-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10110-9 Here's curing a genetic disorder using gene editing in mice https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10113-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10113-6 Here's a study that has figured out that as CO2 levels rise, there's less nitrogen in forests https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10039-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10039-5 and here's personalized mRNA vaccines curing people of breast cancer https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10004-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-10004-2 Like all of these are just from the past month or two and are pretty astounding advances. And they are just a subset of all of the scientific advances recently. All of them have contributors in academia (and science performed outside of academia would not exist without academia, as it depends upon it for most of the conceptual advances as well of course as for scientist training). 1. Stuff like paper mills and complete fraudsters exist, but for the most part, these things are the exception, not the rule. Your average scientist doesn't even hear or think about these things and the weirdos who cause them, to be honest. Nobody has ever heard of "International Review of Financial Analysis" outside of an extremely niche economics subfield. 2. "Public or perish" is not a cycle, really. While I believe it's not good for people to be constantly working under pressure, the fact that academia is so competitive currently is a healthy sign. It's because we have so many people with extremely impressive resumes and backgrounds, doing extremely impressive work, that makes funding so competitive. And when funding is competitive, it's no wonder that funders prefer to fund people who have produced something and told the world about it ("publish"). 3. Fraudsters and hucksters have been in science forever. Go read an account of science in the early 19th century. There are tons and tons of stories of crazy scientists who believed ridiculous things, scientists who kept pushing wrong dogma, and so on. And yet nobody knows about them today, because the evolutionary process of science works: the truths that are empirically verifiable win out, and, given enough time, the failures are selected against.

Bengalilol 7mo ago

About Chris, this 3.5 years old post made me wonder what he's all about. https://www.chrisbrunet.com/p/this-princeton-economics-professor https://www.chrisbrunet.com/p/this-princeton-economics-profe...

class3shock 7mo ago
Liking free speech, disliking affirmative action, being critical of those he disagrees but also giving them a chance to respond. edit: is what he seems to be about based on the linked article
- screenothethird 7mo ago
  [dead]
- KPGv2 7mo ago
  Huh? The linked article is nothing more than "this guy is black, so therefore helping any underprivileged black people gain university admissions is bad" It's outrageous racism. A conclusion about all minorities based on one person's math mistake, where the logic is entirely based on shared skin color. If you replace the races and make it a conclusion about legacy admissions or something, it's obviously stupid and illogical, right? "This white guy doesn't know Afghanistan from Kazakhstan. More proof legacy admissions is bad!"
  - Spivak 7mo ago
    https://xkcd.com/385/ https://xkcd.com/385/ It's just this but with race this time.
    - BurningFrog 7mo ago
      Much has changed since this was published in 2008
  - class3shock 7mo ago
    Are we reading the same article? The focus is on a white woman.

Wobbles42 7mo ago

All of academic publishing has fallen victim to Goodhart's law. Our metrics for judging the quality of academic information are also the metrics for deciding the success of an academic's career. They are destined to be gamed. We either need to turn peer review into an adversarial system where the reviewer has explicit incentives to find flaws and can advance their career by doing it well, or else we need totally different metrics for judging publications (which will probably need to evolve continuously). We assume far too much good faith in this space.