The answer to "how do we fix science?" could only be some committee or bureaucracy, and that will probably work about as well as getting a bunch of HR people together to decide "how do we fix Engineering?"
The author's bio says:
José Luis Ricón is a book reviewer and blogger on various topics including longevity and a roadmap for the future of science at Nintil. You can follow him on Twitter here.
This is certainly ad hominem but is there a reason to think Mr. Ricón has any insights, experience, or publications that make him worth listening to?
Ha! Just yesterday, I was talking to a colleague in the humanities about the relative pleasures of working in a field where there were practically no grants to be sought.
> Scientists these days are just interested in grants.
Ladies and gentlemen, to add insult to injury, the greedy scientist myth strikes again.
There is not a better feeling in the world than to work for free for several years, six days a week (plus Sundays of course), with the weak promise of receiving a "turtle grant" someday. Maybe. (Tomorrow perhaps, the turtle is blocked somewhere. You will be paid in two years) and then being called "greedy".
Yes, there are people getting rich with the money for science, It just happens that they aren't the scientists. They are the politicians that keep the grants as their own personal loans. Science can't be fixed because is the guarantor of politicians that only need to go creative and put impossible requirements year after year to be allowed to keep most of the money for themselves.
In 2010 under the president Zapatero, the spanish government de-funded first and then keep for themselves the 25% of the money compromised for science. In 2015 under president Rajoy the government keep the 48% of the funds allocated for science and in 2016 the 62% of the promised money never reached any researcher. The money was used instead for, who knows... a new swimming pool for each minister maybe, or fixing accounting holes in other sectors... I wouldn't discard cocaine parties neither.
> Scientists used to be aristocrats interested in truth. These days they're just
> interested in grants.
I'm not sure if that's actually what you're advocating, but personally I'm very much against science only being the domain of rich people who can afford to do it as a hobby.
I don't strictly disagree with that, but I do think a significant amount of science (not all) should be led by rich people. Rich people aren't random, there is a natural selection in whom becomes rich. Imperfect as that selection process is, I think it is at least better than the alternatives of popular vote or bureaucrat decision. I say this not being rich myself.
I also believe a significant amount of science should be democratically driven.
that reminds about the history of amateur and professional sports, including Olympics, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century - aristocrats wanted to preserve and cultivate the "pure" sports spirit and thus were pushing for amateur sports and against payments to the sportsmen, while regular people to be able to seriously play sports needed to make a living out of it.
People I know in academia complain about the same issues, publish or perish and all that. They even opine about formal economic models that predict that more funding/subsidies for science leads perversely to less outcome in total and not just relative to the size of the additional investment. However when you take all this as a reason to not take this industry as serious as they would like they get all offended.
> However when you take all this as a reason to not take this industry as serious as they would like they get all offended.
Just because there exists valid criticism of a thing, does not mean all criticism of it are valid: and in my experience, I mainly roll my eyes in exasperation when people criticize science for unfair reasons.
What the public thinks is broken in science is very often not what experts think is broken in science.
How does what I say validate all or any criticism of science, I just don't think that people who work in this industry get to take all progress though human history and put that on their own lapel.
Do you know this podcast decoding the guru, it is funny at times in breaking down internet persona like Jordan Peterson and Eric Weinstein but what annoys me about it though is this "researchers" talking about fringe internet phenomena. Sure you can find your cooks on the internet but maybe they should point their sharp criticism at their own sometimes and draw conclusions from it, as in stop funding it.
What do you call people that disagree to agree on something ... a research community.
For all the good science I know I can equally find you the most asinine navel gazing triviality repackaged and sold as groundbreaking progress. Please don't get me started on what experts in innovation management ISO 56002:2019 can do to help valorise all this knowledge as they piss on us from from the top floor of their ivory tower.
The author's bio says:
José Luis Ricón is a book reviewer and blogger on various topics including longevity and a roadmap for the future of science at Nintil. You can follow him on Twitter here.
This is certainly ad hominem but is there a reason to think Mr. Ricón has any insights, experience, or publications that make him worth listening to?