17 replies to this topic

[hobglobin]

Biog, on 31 October 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

Also, the risk of funding race and publishing is that unscrupulous researchers may falsify data to publish and have funding or position. There is a lot of  examples, alas, including people who published in Science and Nature! Google it, you'll find a lot.

But scientists who do fraud are not a problem of the system, but it's mostly a problem of the scientists themselves. It occurred always and is going to occur in future too. Nowadays it seems more, but this is IMO a result of the tools we have now to detect it. Who'd have done in the 30s-80s of the last century a by-hand examination of all the quoted papers and relevant theses and compared it with the type-writer written thesis in suspicion? Now programs do it for you and also programs and algorithms can check your data if they're manipulated. Paper producing is surely one major cause doing fraud, but this need was always existent, but also the need to finishing your thesis, being successful for your boss, etc. This are inherent causes you can never avoid and only you'd get only less fraud if you change the character of the scientists.

Biog, on 31 October 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

Imagine that you work on a given research project but you didn't obtain results, what is next in the light of materialistic rating basis?
With rating and ranking system, this means that you won't, or hardly, obtain funding for other research projects because you didn't get results and publication from your other projects (so you are bad according to this flaw system). You won't get funding unless you are known and well supported by a strong network. This is unfair.

Perhaps at the given sponsor you'd have problems then, but there are other sources of money and if you can justify your missing results then it will be much easier. A related problem is surely that you only can publish positive results and not negative ones, and it would be helpful because it would avoid a lot of useless studies

Anyway another topic, related to the system how money is given to scientists (by merits, networks, connections, applications, whatever) :
IMO a bigger problem is, that money is more and more given to mainstream projects and that good ideas or exceptionally ideas that might not work or are a bit or more than a bit off the mainstream ideas, are not supported. Funding usually supports only "streamlined", conformist research and scientists only submit quite safe research plans then to have a better chance. So unusual ideas and new paths are rarely supported and have a comparative low chance to be done. Finally science is quite homogenised and "fashions" of research topics are done by most people, which is an impoverishment for science.

[Biog]

leelee, on 31 October 2012 - 07:20 AM, said:

I should apologise

it was me the first !

Edited by Biog, 31 October 2012 - 09:56 AM.

[Biog]

hobglobin, on 31 October 2012 - 09:23 AM, said:

Biog, on 31 October 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

Also, the risk of funding race and publishing is that unscrupulous researchers may falsify data to publish and have funding or position. There is a lot of  examples, alas, including people who published in Science and Nature! Google it, you'll find a lot.

But scientists who do fraud are not a problem of the system, but it's mostly a problem of the scientists themselves. It occurred always and is going to occur in future too. Nowadays it seems more, but this is IMO a result of the tools we have now to detect it. Who'd have done in the 30s-80s of the last century a by-hand examination of all the quoted papers and relevant theses and compared it with the type-writer written thesis in suspicion? Now programs do it for you and also programs and algorithms can check your data if they're manipulated. Paper producing is surely one major cause doing fraud, but this need was always existent, but also the need to finishing your thesis, being successful for your boss, etc. This are inherent causes you can never avoid and only you'd get only less fraud if you change the character of the scientists.

Biog, on 31 October 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

Imagine that you work on a given research project but you didn't obtain results, what is next in the light of materialistic rating basis?
With rating and ranking system, this means that you won't, or hardly, obtain funding for other research projects because you didn't get results and publication from your other projects (so you are bad according to this flaw system). You won't get funding unless you are known and well supported by a strong network. This is unfair.

Perhaps at the given sponsor you'd have problems then, but there are other sources of money and if you can justify your missing results then it will be much easier. A related problem is surely that you only can publish positive results and not negative ones, and it would be helpful because it would avoid a lot of useless studies

Anyway another topic, related to the system how money is given to scientists (by merits, networks, connections, applications, whatever) :
IMO a bigger problem is, that money is more and more given to mainstream projects and that good ideas or exceptionally ideas that might not work or are a bit or more than a bit off the mainstream ideas, are not supported. Funding usually supports only "streamlined", conformist research and scientists only submit quite safe research plans then to have a better chance. So unusual ideas and new paths are rarely supported and have a comparative low chance to be done. Finally science is quite homogenised and "fashions" of research topics are done by most people, which is an impoverishment for science.

How we can judge the goodness and streamline of research projects in advance?
Even some projects may seem unrealistic or utopic, they might give à posteriori good results and open new avenues for research!
Re-search means doing search again and again, which implies that we may spend a lot of time and money but find nothing!
This is why scientific search is called research (do search again since you didn't find anything this time!), right?  
So, have we to stop searching ;
1) because there is no money <=> because we haven't published <=> because some ideas or projects weren't fruitful?
Why then we do search and research?
The problem with many funding agencies, institutions or job recruiters is that they apparently don't know what does mean the word RESEARCH!  
For them, if you search you must find, brilliant results!
This is just ridiculous, otherwise we wouldn't call it research.
So, linking always money and funding, or finding position... to publications record, rating or reputation...is simply absurd and doesn't make sense in a domain called re- re-, re-, re-, search

Edited by Biog, 31 October 2012 - 10:05 AM.