> Researchers progress by publishing research, and because the publication system is built on trust and peer review is not designed to detect fraud it is easy to publish fraudulent research. The business model of journals and publishers depends on publishing, preferably lots of studies as cheaply as possible. They have little incentive to check for fraud and a positive disincentive to experience reputational damage—and possibly legal risk—from retracting studies. Funders, universities, and other research institutions similarly have incentives to fund and publish studies and disincentives to make a fuss about fraudulent research they may have funded or had undertaken in their institution—perhaps by one of their star researchers. Regulators often lack the legal standing and the resources to respond to what is clearly extensive fraud, recognising that proving a study to be fraudulent (as opposed to suspecting it of being fraudulent) is a skilled, complex, and time consuming process. Another problem is that research is increasingly international with participants from many institutions in many countries: who then takes on the unenviable task of investigating fraud? Science really needs global governance.
Long excerpt but the best arguments defy paraphrasing. Arguably, Science would benefit more from decentralization than global governance, because more science could get done instead of spending time on the zero sum politicking of working the governance systems. When you train people to in-effect litigate their research as a case for approval of committees, the falsification of everything is an unavoidable outcome. It becomes like a legal dispute, where there is no truth, just the prosecution of their case to make anything stick they think they can.
It's not just health research, it's a couple generations of graduates who were given a simple blunt instrument in a system incentivised to popularize the use of that dull tool. The tool reduces to, "there is no truth, only power, words are just tools to struggle for it, responsibility is what you have when you don't have power, and if you take care of this system, it will take care of you, but if you call it out it will come for you first." That's the One Big Thing the hedgehog knows. If you practice it, you can rise to the top of almost anything without knowing much about it. The way to beat it is to set a bar of competence and concreteness.
Scrutiny of experimental data goes a long way to setting that bar.
Long excerpt but the best arguments defy paraphrasing. Arguably, Science would benefit more from decentralization than global governance, because more science could get done instead of spending time on the zero sum politicking of working the governance systems. When you train people to in-effect litigate their research as a case for approval of committees, the falsification of everything is an unavoidable outcome. It becomes like a legal dispute, where there is no truth, just the prosecution of their case to make anything stick they think they can.
It's not just health research, it's a couple generations of graduates who were given a simple blunt instrument in a system incentivised to popularize the use of that dull tool. The tool reduces to, "there is no truth, only power, words are just tools to struggle for it, responsibility is what you have when you don't have power, and if you take care of this system, it will take care of you, but if you call it out it will come for you first." That's the One Big Thing the hedgehog knows. If you practice it, you can rise to the top of almost anything without knowing much about it. The way to beat it is to set a bar of competence and concreteness.
Scrutiny of experimental data goes a long way to setting that bar.