91–100 of 227 posts
These issues of research fraud come up often, but the root of the problem is a bit more subtle. In North America at least, biomedical research labs operate largely as fiefdoms of the individual principal investigators (PIs). The actual research work falls almost entirely on the backs of grad students and postdoctoral fellows. The grad students need to generate "good" data in order to graduate, the postdocs need the s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Industry kinda already has. Products launched. Teams managed. A candidate's publication record is a conversation starter during interviews, but I feel like years of experience at a company working on launching a successful project is a much more valuable currency.
> Industry kinda already has. Products launched. This suggestion is so detached from both the problem and the very nature of academia that it's straight-out laughable. I mean, what do product launches have to do building knowledge on the state of the art, identifying a novel idea, doing the iterative work to refine the idea, and finally document it to the public? Product launches at best require you to manage people…
These issues of research fraud come up often, but the root of the problem is a bit more subtle. In North America at least, biomedical research labs operate largely as fiefdoms of the individual principal investigators (PIs). The actual research work falls almost entirely on the backs of grad students and postdoctoral fellows. The grad students need to generate "good" data in order to graduate, the postdocs need the s…
What do you suggest as an alternative?
They should be tied to how systematic, logical, and well-documented the research is. We need a system wide change from funding bodies, job committees to publishing criteria.
I've read that before 2003, the whole of humanity has published as many scientific papers as from 2003 to 2016. So what happened around 2000? Who has turned the scientific mission into a blind competition for superficial metrics? So many people in science I meet (apart from the few who benefited from this system, and therefore were selected by it) are frustrated by publishing for the sake of publishing (not science)…
Basic set of checks-and-balances: * Preregistration and adoption of open science practices * Public access to research results, methods, and data, with some exceptions (such as PII) * Federally-funded universities can't use NDAs or non-disparage agreements * Federally-funded universities must respond to records requests under terms similar to FOIA (note that FOIA has requestor pay costs) * Federally-funded universiti…
Salary caps? So the best people go into the private sector where they can actually get paid?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The basis is spending 15 years in NYC high finance and having multiple close groups of friends who graduated from Stanford, work in tech, raised VC, etc
You have 15 years of finance experience as you “enter your thirties”?
These issues of research fraud come up often, but the root of the problem is a bit more subtle. In North America at least, biomedical research labs operate largely as fiefdoms of the individual principal investigators (PIs). The actual research work falls almost entirely on the backs of grad students and postdoctoral fellows. The grad students need to generate "good" data in order to graduate, the postdocs need the s…
Estimating from my own reading, 1% of research is fraud and 80% is worthless for other reasons. Numbers vary between fields. If that's the case, what's the argument for why we should spend time doing something about the 1%? Solving 100% of the 1% wouldn't change the overall situation much. Possible arguments include: - Fixing the 80% is hard, but fixing the 1% is satisfying (to the aggressively conventional-minded, a…
I think the disproportionate harm argument is a big deal. A single high-profile case of fraud undermines trust in the entire field, and that’s critical to maintain.
Basic set of checks-and-balances: * Preregistration and adoption of open science practices * Public access to research results, methods, and data, with some exceptions (such as PII) * Federally-funded universities can't use NDAs or non-disparage agreements * Federally-funded universities must respond to records requests under terms similar to FOIA (note that FOIA has requestor pay costs) * Federally-funded universiti…
> * Public access to research results, methods, and data, with some exceptions (such as PII) You mentioned PII, so I'm assuming some familiarity with the health field. I'm curious about your thoughts on the position that one should not be required to immediately publicize their data, because there needs to be an expectation that a researcher can translate the capital (both time and money) they expend to acquire quali…
But I don't care much, so long as it gets published within a sensible timeframe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you suggest as an alternative?
Research publication, funding, and jobs should not be tied to outcomes of research. They should be tied to how systematic, logical, and well-documented the research is. We need a system wide change from funding bodies, job committees to publishing criteria.
As a researcher you should be desiring to get jobs or rewards based solely on the care of methodology, clarity of communication and ease of reproducibility.
If you do those things well and the papers turn up negative results, that’s good archived knowledge for society. Turning up positive results should be viewed as an emergent property of a wide network of labs, agencies, universities and governments, and never a property of darling individuals.