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As the author points out in the abstract, "Optimal interventions need to understand and harness the motives of various stakeholders who operate in scientific re

As the author points out in the abstract, "Optimal interventions need to understand and harness the motives of various stakeholders who operate in scientific research and who differ on the extent to which they are interested in promoting publishable, fundable, translatable, or profitable results." Yes. This is fundamentally a human behavior problem, and economics, "the dismal science," reminds us that people respond to incentives. If the incentives are not aligned to produce better research, all the ideas in the world about best research practices and best publication practices will not help. The author suggests testing interventions experimentally whenever possible, and that is what will best suggest what helps most to change human behavior in the direction of producing more true research findings.

pcrh 12y ago
The economics of research are worthy of more investigation. The goal would be to reward those who produce the most research with the highest impact. However, it often takes years or decades to determine which of the fashionable ideas circulating at any one time are the foundations upon which further knowledge will be built, and which will fade away. A similar problem exists when discussing the mechanisms of rewarding Wall Street traders, bankers and politicians. Since the impacts of the work performed today are so distant from realistic mechanisms of evaluation, proxies are instead used. In academia, this amounts to counting the number of papers a person publishes and the journals in which they are published. So, are there alternative mechanisms that could be used? In what way could we harness the mechanisms of industry and capitalism to further "true science"? A possibility, alluded to in the article linked, might be for researchers to makes "bets" on the outcome of their work. For example, they would lodge their predictions at some central place (perhaps using the mechanisms currently used for grant proposals), and if their predictions are correct, they get a reward. So, one would submit a grant application, some funding would be given, and if the results are correct, an extra tranche of money is delivered to the scientist (not their institute). It would be necessary to ensure that they are not betting on results they already have (~insider trading).
- abecedarius 12y ago
  http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html for the latter proposal.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- analog31 12y ago
  >>> So, one would submit a grant application, some funding would be given, and if the results are correct, an extra tranche of money is delivered to the scientist (not their institute). That seems like a perverse incentive to me.
  - pcrh 12y ago
    It's similar to a bonus for making the correct prediction. Obviously one would need independent validation that the scientist's prediction was correct. It wouldn't be sufficient for scientists to make predictions based on the work of others since the tools and so forth available to the candidate would not necessarily be widely accessible. However, once a scientist has 1) made a prediction, 2) demonstrated that their prediction holds out, and 3) that it is independently verified, then they should get rewarded at a rate above that of their peers who make predictions that don't hold out. Edit: "prediction" in the above is easily replaced by "hypothesis".

pcrh 12y ago

The economics of research are worthy of more investigation. The goal would be to reward those who produce the most research with the highest impact. However, it often takes years or decades to determine which of the fashionable ideas circulating at any one time are the foundations upon which further knowledge will be built, and which will fade away. A similar problem exists when discussing the mechanisms of rewarding Wall Street traders, bankers and politicians. Since the impacts of the work performed today are so distant from realistic mechanisms of evaluation, proxies are instead used. In academia, this amounts to counting the number of papers a person publishes and the journals in which they are published. So, are there alternative mechanisms that could be used? In what way could we harness the mechanisms of industry and capitalism to further "true science"? A possibility, alluded to in the article linked, might be for researchers to makes "bets" on the outcome of their work. For example, they would lodge their predictions at some central place (perhaps using the mechanisms currently used for grant proposals), and if their predictions are correct, they get a reward. So, one would submit a grant application, some funding would be given, and if the results are correct, an extra tranche of money is delivered to the scientist (not their institute). It would be necessary to ensure that they are not betting on results they already have (~insider trading).

abecedarius 12y ago
http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html for the latter proposal.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
analog31 12y ago
>>> So, one would submit a grant application, some funding would be given, and if the results are correct, an extra tranche of money is delivered to the scientist (not their institute). That seems like a perverse incentive to me.
- pcrh 12y ago
  It's similar to a bonus for making the correct prediction. Obviously one would need independent validation that the scientist's prediction was correct. It wouldn't be sufficient for scientists to make predictions based on the work of others since the tools and so forth available to the candidate would not necessarily be widely accessible. However, once a scientist has 1) made a prediction, 2) demonstrated that their prediction holds out, and 3) that it is independently verified, then they should get rewarded at a rate above that of their peers who make predictions that don't hold out. Edit: "prediction" in the above is easily replaced by "hypothesis".