Thoughts on the state of science nowadays?

[Macoleco]

Recently started my postgraduate course, and have found a somewhat disgusting reality.

Publish or perish. Nowadays to publish papers, if possible on prestigious magazines, is what every scientist must strive to. No longer you do science and see what happens. Rather, finding positive results and publishing is what matters today.

Publishers making billions out of the work of scientists who earn nothing back (Elsevier, etc). The career of scientists depending on quantity and quality of papers. Which must be done within a certain time and budget limit. Most of the time research has been already predefined by the laboratory or professor.

Scientific research has become too, a cog in the machine. I’m sure many of you will say that “scientific progress has never been better”, but is it really?

Just because more papers are being published does not mean relevant or useful knowledge. For example, many papers of the same topic will be published with just minor differences. For example, someone used 1mm of alcohol on the experiment. Someone else used 2mm of alcohol. And you get two papers. Yet both of them irrelevant for the topic in question. There is no fundamental or significant progress.

An environment that fosters creativity, time, and and an economical system that allows more budget for research is the best option in my opinion.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

That’s been the state of science for nearly a century (the phrase ‘publish or perish’ dates from the late 1920s).

I’m surprised that you seem surprised by this.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Recently started my postgraduate course, and have found a somewhat disgusting reality.

Publish or perish. Nowadays to publish papers, if possible on prestigious magazines, is what every scientist must strive to. No longer you do science and see what happens. Rather, finding positive results and publishing is what matters today.

Publishers making billions out of the work of scientists who earn nothing back (Elsevier, etc). The career of scientists depending on quantity and quality of papers. Which must be done within a certain time and budget limit. Most of the time research has been already predefined by the laboratory or professor.

Scientific research has become too, a cog in the machine. I’m sure many of you will say that “scientific progress has never been better”, but is it really?

Just because more papers are being published does not mean relevant or useful knowledge. For example, many papers of the same topic will be published with just minor differences. For example, someone used 1mm of alcohol on the experiment. Someone else used 2mm of alcohol. And you get two papers. Yet both of them irrelevant for the topic in question. There is no fundamental or significant progress.

An environment that fosters creativity, time, and and an economical system that allows more budget for research is the best option in my opinion.

As you indicated,  the career of the scientist depends on quantity and quality of the papers.   The quality of the paper in turn is depends on the reputation of the publication which accepts it for publication, and the mechanism publications put in place to chose what to publish from amongst options submitted in turn reflect the fact that it’s own reputation in the long run depends on how often papers it publish are found useful to the progress of science as indicated by other scientists who cites them in their own works.

The mechanism, while seemingly brutal, is not without a reasonable logic.

Science is part of the economy and as such must compete with other demands for the same pool of resources. So the purpose of science is not  to generate more or better results at any cost to the rest of the economy.   in principle investment in science must find the optimum point where marginal investment equals marginal return.     So this is what makes just increasing budget to foster creativity a dubious default solution.   Does increase in budget really foster such increase in creativity that value of science always increasing in proportion to budget increase?

Or a similar question regarding reform that is alleged to increase creativity, would that reform shift the marginal cost of productivity curve of science to the left or right?

[Jehanne]

I have heard it said that no matter how bad a scientific paper is that there is a journal somewhere that will publish it. It seems to me that a better metric would be not the number of publications that a scientist makes, but the citations of those papers by other scientists. I once had my undergraduate advisor tell me that nearly all masters theses were garbage, and after getting over my initial shock and subsequent inquiry, he went on to tell me that they were garbage because no one read them.

[Macoleco]

Recently started my postgraduate course, and have found a somewhat disgusting reality.

Publish or perish. Nowadays to publish papers, if possible on prestigious magazines, is what every scientist must strive to. No longer you do science and see what happens. Rather, finding positive results and publishing is what matters today.

Publishers making billions out of the work of scientists who earn nothing back (Elsevier, etc). The career of scientists depending on quantity and quality of papers. Which must be done within a certain time and budget limit. Most of the time research has been already predefined by the laboratory or professor.

Scientific research has become too, a cog in the machine. I’m sure many of you will say that “scientific progress has never been better”, but is it really?

Just because more papers are being published does not mean relevant or useful knowledge. For example, many papers of the same topic will be published with just minor differences. For example, someone used 1mm of alcohol on the experiment. Someone else used 2mm of alcohol. And you get two papers. Yet both of them irrelevant for the topic in question. There is no fundamental or significant progress.

An environment that fosters creativity, time, and and an economical system that allows more budget for research is the best option in my opinion.

As you indicated,  the career of the scientist depends on quantity and quality of the papers.   The quality of the paper in turn is depends on the reputation of the publication which accepts it for publication, and the mechanism publications put in place to chose what to publish from amongst options submitted in turn reflect the fact that it’s own reputation in the long run depends on how often papers it publish are found useful to the progress of science as indicated by other scientists who cites them in their own works.

The mechanism, while seemingly brutal, is not without a reasonable logic.

Science is part of the economy and as such must compete with other demands for the same pool of resources. So the purpose of science is not  to generate more or better results at any cost to the rest of the economy.   in principle investment in science must find the optimum point where marginal investment equals marginal return.     So this is what makes just increasing budget to foster creativity a dubious default solution.   Does increase in budget really foster such increase in creativity that value of science always increasing in proportion to budget increase?

Or a similar question regarding reform that is alleged to increase creativity, would that reform shift the marginal cost of productivity curve of science to the left or right?

I understand what you mean. But science, or rather education in general, works within capitalism. Perhaps if we had a different economical system, investing in research would not be considered risky, or expecting short term results.

I work with lasers that cost above 50 000$. Perhaps under a different economical system they would be cheaper? Thus allowing more experimentation?

Your argument is correct within the frame of capitalism.

[Macoleco]

That’s been the state of science for nearly a century (the phrase ‘publish or perish’ dates from the late 1920s).

I’m surprised that you seem surprised by this.

Boru

And what shall we do about it?

Lately I’ve been thinking I don’t want to be a researcher/professor anymore.

I think nowadays the only way you can find creative freedom is art. Since you absolute control over your work (literature, painting, etc).

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

That’s been the state of science for nearly a century (the phrase ‘publish or perish’ dates from the late 1920s).

I’m surprised that you seem surprised by this.

Boru

And what shall we do about it?

Lately I’ve been thinking I don’t want to be a researcher/professor anymore.

I think nowadays the only way you can find creative freedom is art. Since you absolute control over your work (literature, painting, etc).

The two pursuits are not mutually exclusive. But unless one wants to be a commercial artist, the odds of making a living are much better in science.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that artists have 'absolute control over (their) work'. In any form of literary endeavour, for example, - fiction, non-fiction, screenplays, etc - a writer necessarily has to deal with publishers and editors (unless you wish to write only for your own amusement, but that butters no parsnips). And unless you can land a wealthy patron, the same sort of thing applies to other artforms as well.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

That’s been the state of science for nearly a century (the phrase ‘publish or perish’ dates from the late 1920s).

I’m surprised that you seem surprised by this.

Boru

And what shall we do about it?

Lately I’ve been thinking I don’t want to be a researcher/professor anymore.

I think nowadays the only way you can find creative freedom is art. Since you absolute control over your work (literature, painting, etc).

who do you think would subsidize you for anything your whim moves you to do?

artist whose creative freedom moves them to create things no one is moved to pay for, starve.   the preverbal starving artist is not a myth.   and most artists making a living by producing formulaic kitsch.

[Orbit]

As an academic, I see several problems with "publish or perish" culture but not enough to drive me from the profession.

[Jehanne]

As an academic, I see several problems with "publish or perish" culture but not enough to drive me from the profession.

You could always teach high school as a fallback. I think that the typical salary is 70 to 100K these days.