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In my opinion we are missing out on great discoveries because we allow a small number of humans determine if a scientific research question is worthy of funding

In my opinion we are missing out on great discoveries because we allow a small number of humans determine if a scientific research question is worthy of funding. If a single scientist thinks an idea is worth doing and can find the resources to support it, she should do it. We will move to a system where we only ask 'can this question be answered by the scientific method?' If we use the scientific method to answer these questions we will uncover secrets of the universe that would never survive in the current system humans have designed. The best scientists do not design their experiments with a goal of publishing in top tier journals. And as a community, we should not be encouraging this behavior. The best scientists investigate questions out of pure curiosity and as a side effect publish the most impactful research. Young talented people are already tackling really hard and high risk problems. If this is truly what young scientists want to do, they will find a way. 10 years of guaranteed salary is not the solution, but giving everyone the opportunity to be a scientist may be.

danieltillett 11y ago
>Young talented people are already tackling really hard and high risk problems. If this is truly what young scientists want to do, they will find a way. 10 years of guaranteed salary is not the solution, but giving everyone the opportunity to be a scientist may be. I love your idealism, but having climbed the greasy pole to academic tenure (I have since left science) I can say that you really can’t afford to work on the high risk projects. When you are a junior scientist the more senior scientists control what you can work on and they want you generating publications. When you are a post doc you can’t afford to not get publications out and hence you have to work in areas which will produce results within 2 years. Once you are a senior scientist you are forced to work on projects that will generate x number of papers within the 3 year grant period or else you wont get any further funding. At every stage of your career you are effectively forced to work on projects that are guaranteed to generate publishable results within the next 2 years. The reason I suggested that the scientists awarded one of these 10 year fellowships are not allowed to publish in anything but the top journals is to remove the pressure of publishing off the fellows and allow them to concentrate on solving the difficult problems. The only reason I suggested an exception for the top tier journals is in rare case the fellow made a lucky breakthrough - we don’t want them sitting on some important result for years just because they not allowed to publish. I have many high risk/high reward projects that I would have loved to have worked on when I was a professional scientist, but I could not afford to do so. I knew if I failed to produce consistent publishable results I would be out of a job. Even once I had tenure I could not in all honesty ask my students or post docs to work on projects with a significant risk of failure. We have created a system where we have a high probability of making incremental progress, but almost no chance of big breakthroughs.

danieltillett 11y ago

>Young talented people are already tackling really hard and high risk problems. If this is truly what young scientists want to do, they will find a way. 10 years of guaranteed salary is not the solution, but giving everyone the opportunity to be a scientist may be. I love your idealism, but having climbed the greasy pole to academic tenure (I have since left science) I can say that you really can’t afford to work on the high risk projects. When you are a junior scientist the more senior scientists control what you can work on and they want you generating publications. When you are a post doc you can’t afford to not get publications out and hence you have to work in areas which will produce results within 2 years. Once you are a senior scientist you are forced to work on projects that will generate x number of papers within the 3 year grant period or else you wont get any further funding. At every stage of your career you are effectively forced to work on projects that are guaranteed to generate publishable results within the next 2 years. The reason I suggested that the scientists awarded one of these 10 year fellowships are not allowed to publish in anything but the top journals is to remove the pressure of publishing off the fellows and allow them to concentrate on solving the difficult problems. The only reason I suggested an exception for the top tier journals is in rare case the fellow made a lucky breakthrough - we don’t want them sitting on some important result for years just because they not allowed to publish. I have many high risk/high reward projects that I would have loved to have worked on when I was a professional scientist, but I could not afford to do so. I knew if I failed to produce consistent publishable results I would be out of a job. Even once I had tenure I could not in all honesty ask my students or post docs to work on projects with a significant risk of failure. We have created a system where we have a high probability of making incremental progress, but almost no chance of big breakthroughs.