It never really worked otherwise. Even before formal peer review and journals, social standing and political squabbling, finding patrons etc. definitely affected science. The grade school textbook ideal version is a literal lie-to-children. The problem is that threading the needle correctly, without falling over to the other side, of quackery and "the academic mafia is suppressing this perpetual motion machine" and "Big Science" doesn't want to admit that ESP exists etc. can be incredibly hard.
It's a pet peeve of mine, but "publications" and "peer-review" are not really part of the scientific process? Just like "academia" they have kind of grown onto the term, almost claiming it for their own. I find that a sad evolution.
The most fun in science can be had when done at home and shared with friends.
Academia != science. It is a social construct and dominated by people with power within a given field. That being said, double blind review process improved the author engineering problem a lot.
But in practice it absolutely is how the academic world works. Is politics all the way down.
Which is why it's so funny when you see non skeptical appeals to "the god of science" which apparently exists in a vacuum of correctness and ethical purity.
The author elsewhere cautions “I write this because PhDs seem to attract a lot of smart, idealistic kids who are interested in doing Science 1 and don’t realize that they’ve signed up to do Science 2.”
And there's more where that came from. This particular sausage is made with tragically messed up incentives, and people will naturally always optimize the framework you put them in.
Thankfully the scientific process is incredibly resilient to nonsense, because a bad result will eventually screw up someone's future work when they come to rely on it. But it's not pretty.
> because a bad result will eventually screw up someone's future
Not if they isolate themselves enough from the outcome but I get what you're saying.
The world progresses despite these deeply flawed institutions (corporations or academia have these perverse incentive problems and all in all, they do create some value on average).
bonoboTP|9 months ago
a123b456c|9 months ago
Science has a few aspects that are distinct from non-Science enterprises, but more aspects in common.
317070|9 months ago
The most fun in science can be had when done at home and shared with friends.
bgnn|9 months ago
Academia != science. It is a social construct and dominated by people with power within a given field. That being said, double blind review process improved the author engineering problem a lot.
isaacremuant|9 months ago
Which is why it's so funny when you see non skeptical appeals to "the god of science" which apparently exists in a vacuum of correctness and ethical purity.
gbacon|9 months ago
https://maxwellforbes.com/posts/dont-try-to-reform-science/
intended|9 months ago
As long as It has some capacity to self correct, it’s a stable function.
tux3|9 months ago
Thankfully the scientific process is incredibly resilient to nonsense, because a bad result will eventually screw up someone's future work when they come to rely on it. But it's not pretty.
isaacremuant|9 months ago
Not if they isolate themselves enough from the outcome but I get what you're saying.
The world progresses despite these deeply flawed institutions (corporations or academia have these perverse incentive problems and all in all, they do create some value on average).