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Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

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Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#21

Post by ta988 »

sega_sai wrote: post #2

I think it is a fair question how to organize science for best results (maximum productivity ?). I am no fan of pressure to apply for grants, which is particularly strong in the US. Also the amount of pressure/effort needed to get permanent/tenured position is very large. While this is clearly a big drain on people, and some people cannot handle it, either because they don't play the game well, or just live/work bala…

The productivity going down is a good thing in my opinion, thats how you can free some effort so you can focus it on quality.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#22

Post by clairity »

dantheman wrote: post #13
cs702 wrote: post #11

> universities ... expect faculty in the medical schools to pay their own way with either clinical work or external research funding. This puts tremendous financial pressure on eager young medical researchers, sometimes leading them not to the projects that are most needed or that they are most passionate about, but to the projects that will get them funding. Sometimes it feels as if the current system we have in the…

Have higher standards and fund less science? If you have a million dollars to spend, you'll be careful and pay attention; if you have a billion, you'll be looking at crude aggregate metrics.

this is why we decentralize so that that billion can instead be a thousand millions, and we try a bunch of options in parallel rather than consolidating power in a flawed few, no matter how accomplished those few are (statistically, the consolidated few will always be relatively flawed to the parallel many).

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#25

Post by ta988 »

auggierose wrote: post #9

It's pretty easy to see who is a top star (because they have continuous highest-quality output), and who will never deliver anything worthwhile. The trouble is the continuum between those two extremes. This domain is dominated by politics, endless grant applications, bureaucracy. Nobody can really tell where you belong in this continuum, maybe not even you yourself. And I also don't believe that academia is the best…

Unfortunately for some fields it is difficult to do anything outside of a lab. And startups are not a good solution either with the incentive to make money fast that shift the incentives. I would be interested in knowing what other places you are thinking about.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#26

Post by aaomidi »

renewiltord wrote: post #15
tensor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The follow on from this is rather more problematic. If you are prioritizing production things, then it means you'll severely limit the topics you explore. Anything that would take too long to get to market, or is too risky, or is too theoretical, will never be prioritized. This is the reason for the tenure system, to give true freedom to explore novel and future oriented work. Things that won't pay off for decades, i…

mRNA vaccines took ten years before they "made it" and they needed a black swan event to really take off. Moderna IPO'd eight years in. I think this is a false premise that we have. That there is any long-term science going on at all in government labs that wouldn't happen in private labs. It's conventional wisdom but not likely to be true. The market is very sophisticated now. There are players who make decisions ou…

People thinking in the same line of you is why I think China is going to be the global leader in scientific discovery in a decade.

We've stagnated while they've organized their efforts for long term discovery and long term technical brilliance.

I guess time will tell if public or private sector research is the best possible solution.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#27

Post by bosswipe »

renewiltord wrote: post #3

Well, it's no surprise that people optimize to the metric that's available, right? Private labs aim to make production things. Public labs aim to collect grants. The only real hope for modern science is a business with a long-term view. That's because that business is only rewarded if their thing works. If there was ever a time when public academics worked for science, it is no longer that today. Now it is occupied b…

Is there any evidence that public labs are producing less science than they have in the past?

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#28

Post by andi999 »

auggierose wrote: post #9

It's pretty easy to see who is a top star (because they have continuous highest-quality output), and who will never deliver anything worthwhile. The trouble is the continuum between those two extremes. This domain is dominated by politics, endless grant applications, bureaucracy. Nobody can really tell where you belong in this continuum, maybe not even you yourself. And I also don't believe that academia is the best…

Well, top stars are obvious a couple of years in their career. Or do you think they are obvious from the beginning?

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#29

Post by thayne »

I am a casualty of this. I was originally intending to follow an academic career, until I discovered that my career would be dependent on my ability to secure grants. Something that if I was not bad at (which I think is unlikely), would at least be extremely stressful for me. It isn't the only reason I decided to to switch to being a software engineer, but it is a major reason.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#30

Post by garden_hermit »

aaomidi wrote: post #26
renewiltord wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mRNA vaccines took ten years before they "made it" and they needed a black swan event to really take off. Moderna IPO'd eight years in. I think this is a false premise that we have. That there is any long-term science going on at all in government labs that wouldn't happen in private labs. It's conventional wisdom but not likely to be true. The market is very sophisticated now. There are players who make decisions ou…

People thinking in the same line of you is why I think China is going to be the global leader in scientific discovery in a decade. We've stagnated while they've organized their efforts for long term discovery and long term technical brilliance. I guess time will tell if public or private sector research is the best possible solution.

I see no evidence that China has organized around long-term discovery or technical brilliance. They have many scientists, and relative advantages in certain fields, but their system of science still has major structure issues.

For example, one aspect of Chinese science policy is paying scientists based on the impact factor of their published papers. This, however, has lead to a much larger issue of "salami-slicing"/"least-publishable unit" publications aimed at passing the minimum bar of a "good enough" journal rather than contributing to science. Another issue—these payouts are only given to certain authors of the paper, which can lead to issues and controversies over authorship position. These are issues in the U.S. and Europe, but less severe, and not incentivized with cash payments.

China does not have some secret sauce that makes them better at discovery or technical brilliance. If anything their policies are organized towards maximizing prestige. Whether large-scale competence follows prestige, we will have to wait to see.

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