Academic science (at least what I have seen in North American research-intensive universities, as it has changed over the past 24 years) is no longer about scie

Academic science (at least what I have seen in North American research-intensive universities, as it has changed over the past 24 years) is no longer about scientific truth. The system is constructed (partially by design and partially due to circumstance, i.e. such scarce resources) such that scientific truth is no longer the goal. The goal now is self preservation and self promotion. The truth today is that it is no longer good enough to "just" be a good (or even great) scientist. Now you have to sparkle. Now in order to get postdoc funding you have to show how your science is not just great but also how it links up with industry. Now in order to get hired into a tenure track stream you not only need to have published your PhD work in prestigious journals but you must also show evidence to your hiring university of your ability to attract money. Now in order to get tenure you need much more than "just" a solid, respected track record of doing science. You need articles in high-end journals. You need patents. You need links with industry. You need to have been featured in the popular press. You need a track record of attracting money to the university. The more of this you produce, the higher your salary, the more perks you get at your home university. Lots of people excuse the system by saying something like: well, sure, the system has changed, boo hoo, but after you get tenure you can stop being concerned about all the BS and return to just doing good science. The thing is, people don't do that. People build a "brand" as a professor-scientist, and as their profile gets higher, so does their salary, so do their perks. At my university, perversely, the highest-profile scientists, with the highest salaries, (1) teach zero. I mean zero. (2) travel 70% of the time away from home base. (3) supervise grad students by, truthfully, farming out the supervision duties to their postdocs, who by the way, often write the grants for the supervisor as a sort of write-of-passage (sic); (4) are trotted out by the university anytime they need to boast about how good the uni is. The system has been twisted so that the goal is to get money and the means to that goal is to publish high-profile papers with simple stories in high-profile journals, and the means to THAT is to "do science". The goal ought to be good science, and the means to that ought to be funding (money). It's backwards. PS, I speak from experience, I got my PhD in 1999 and I've been tenured since 2006. I'm not a high-flyer (relative to the academic celebrities in my faculty) but I am on the A team, so to speak. PPS I'm not excusing scientific fraud ... but it's important to understand the context in which it occurs.