By Ross Pomeroy
From afar, science is a marvelous thing, a humming engine of discovery that simultaneously reveals the wonders of our world and makes it a better place for all to live in. But when you get a little closer and scrutinize science’s innards, you realize that it’s not exactly a well-oiled machine – far from it. The engine is noisy, inefficient, and in dire need of maintenance.
This engine is a metaphor for the modern scientific enterprise, the system through which scientists today solve problems, generate new knowledge, and innovate. By and large – at least in the academic setting – it boils down to: secure funding, conduct experiments, publish the results, repeat. This monotonous system is in many ways antithetical to the idealized form of science: delving into the unknown and testing sometimes wild ideas to discover something new and potentially world-changing. All too often, funding agencies won’t financially back risky ideas, so money regularly flows to older researchers with many publications under their belt in tried and true areas of research. Younger researchers with fresh hypotheses can be ignored, or worse, openly attacked.
In his forthcoming book, I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right, science journalist Matt Kaplan shined a light on some of the pitfalls of the current system through which science is done. More importantly, he also offered some solutions. Here are three of the most radical:
1. Award grants through a lottery
To receive money for their work, scientists typically write grants to funding agencies explaining their ideas, how these ideas should be tested, and why they should be funded. Agencies first review these proposals for scientific merit, weeding out the bogus from the legitimate. Afterwards, the proposals are sent to committees where members must decide between “proposals that are good and those that are excellent,” Kaplan described. This process is the most time-consuming, and often results in decisions whereby members fall back on factors like age, prestige, and familiarity. In other words, they opt for safety and status quo rather than risky and novel. Instead, at this stage, grants should be awarded randomly with a lottery, Kaplan suggests.
2. Take a note from Willy Wonka with ‘Golden Tickets’
Imagine a committee meeting in which an expert is thoroughly enamored with a new idea presented in a grant, but their colleagues have reservations. Under present conditions, that grant stands no chance. But with a golden ticket, it does.
“The notion behind the golden ticket methodology is that reviewers working on grant-awarding committees can each be given the power to override their colleagues on one occasion during consideration of applications,” Kaplan explains. “Proposals with unusual ideas and higher risks stand a better chance of getting funding than they do now since just a single reviewer can say, “This is cool, we should give it a try!”
However, such a system would need safeguards to guard against corruption or blatant favoritism. Any reviewer caught selling their tickets or using them regularly on allies would be suspended.
3. Older researchers should step back.
Nobody likes to be told they are old, but the simple fact is that people “become more conservative, rigid, and risk averse as they get older,” Kaplan writes. Scientists are no different. They grow more hostile to new ideas while at the same time drawing exorbitant salaries and competing with younger, more driven scientists. Perhaps they should take a step back, for the good of science?
Kaplan offered ideas for what they could do instead to promote the scientific endeavor.
“If an older scientist has good mentoring abilities, they should move to a smaller lab space, shift to a lower salary, and continue mentoring. If the older scientist is a good author, they should pivot toward writing more books. If they are talented at editing, journals are always in need of people who can help with reviewing and editing articles that come in. What matters most is that they take a step back as they enter old age to free up essential resources for young researchers.”
This article was originally published by RealClearScience and made available via RealClearWire.
This article focuses on funding sources available thru the political industrial complex. Slow, expensive, unfair.
Private funding appears to be much more effective. Rocket Science these days is moving much faster with Elon’s money. AI development is largely a private enterprise.
Why do we publicly fund at these huge levels?
Because lawyers using “fiduciary responsibility” as a club, have forced businesses to focus on short term results. No more risk taking. No more searching for unknown knowledge.
I disagree. A great deal of actually useful science is done in the R&D departments of private companies looking to find solutions to real problems. In fact, the history of scientific advancement is dominated by researchers (inventors) hypothesizing, theorizing and testing their ideas to come up with a solution that will lead to profitable business. Think Thomas Edison, Alexander G. Bell, Nicola Tesla, Edwin Land and Elon Musk. I worked in an area where the norm was for businesses to invest 3-5% or total revenue in R&D. Their success in doing good science is validated by the innovative products they produce and their profitability in marketing them.
Solutions to real problems is part of doing business. Scientific research is looking for expanding knowledge. All of the people you mentioned have looked for new things. None of them were stifled by obtaining government grants issued by bureaucrats.
I’d argue that government funding of academic science has stifled science a great deal. Eisenhower had it right when he warned of government capture of scientific research. The climate change scam stands as a colossal example of government manipulation and corruption of science through control of the funding.
What did Musk invent or discover?
Elon is neither a scientist or an engineer.
Also companies fund research at universities, in my research lab about half the funding came from non-government sources, notable ones being GM, Ford, Honda, Yamaha,….
This says where the problem lies https://cup.columbia.edu/book/unreliable/9780231216234/
That is indeed one of the problems.
Not mentioned is the professional grant writers.
Not mentioned is the grant topics often dictate the expected results.
Back in the day Canadian science and medical grants funded individuals with smallish but steady grant funding. The proposal was short and what counted most was what had been accomplished in the previous 5 years. Young scientists got a chance to show what they could do. If an idea did not work out, you could switch horses midstream with no penalty. Collaborations arose organically.
Then the government dictated that projects likely to yield a nearterm payoff be given priority. Rather than individuals, Groups proposing “big” projects were favoured – especially “multicentre ones. You can guess the results.
The problem with “Weeding Out” older researchers in favor of Newer ones is that newer ones are often trained by ESG, DEI spouting professors that traversed the New schooling routine rather than ones trained in traditional sciences with traditional science ethos.
This is the place where experienced mentors can contribute the most.
We can contribute experience and success by continuing emphasis on the importance of The Scientific Method. It used to be a near-universal guideline, but now seems to be an optional extra, maybe with too many youngsters not even knowing what it is. Geoff S
Much like new math.
1 + 1 = 2, How do you feel about that?
“Math is racist.”
Teaching arithmetic and English is officially cultural genocide in Canada.
“But when you get a little closer and scrutinize science’s innards, you realize that it’s not exactly a well-oiled machine – far from it. The engine is noisy, inefficient, and in dire need of maintenance.“
Just like all human endeavour then.
“and in dire need of maintenance”
Like the Met Office surface sites. !
But if the Met Office were to maintain the UK weather stations properly, how would they cook the books?
You seem unaware that in most cases it is not possible to site the UKMO’s stations where WMO classification is obtainable.
The UK is a densly populated country with the consequent infrastructure.
Many stations serve a double purpose in providing data to aircraft and so are at airports. The UK is too far north to preclude shadows from nearby stuctures/trees from striking the site FI.
This what the WMO say:
WMO Statement on UK Met Office Observations and Siting Classification
Prof. Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, expresses her appreciation to the UK’s Met Office for the free exchange of high quality observations and data, and its commitment to international meteorological cooperation and trust. Prof.Saulo emphasizes that the siting classification does not reflect the quality or suitability of the stations for weather and climate monitoring, but rather it provides scientists with information about the ability of the stations to represent the area in which the observations are made.
https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/how-forecasts-are-made/observations/observation-site-classification#:~:text=The%20Met%20Office%20inspection%20scheme,would%20be%20classed%20as%20Unsatisfactory.
Oh, but of course they are all part of the grand conspiracy to bring in a global socialist goverment.
Forgot that bit of absurdity.
(and no doubt you think that the WMO is “in it” too.
When we fly between LAX and LHR, we typically go “feet dry” over Scotland and fly down the length of England to Heathrow. Looking out the window of the plane, if it isn’t cloudy (!), I see a lot of empty land in that densely populated country (farms, pastures, woods). Yes, it is pretty much impossible to site a Class 1 weather reporting station in an urban area, but there are plenty of places that one can create a Class 1 site.
Just another myth that will never die here.
(after all you have to hang onto something)
As though the UKMO’s surface data has even a thousandth of a degree C bias in the world climate trends, even if it were all *warmed” by as much as 1C.
No, like the state of US democracy, which has the potential to bugger-up the world much more quickly than anthro GHG emissions could.
Two things. One, science and creating new inventions/knowledge are not the same thing. Creating is risky. It may not pan out. Look at Planck, Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, William Shockley, the Wright Bothers. These folks didn’t have bureaucrats dogging them about getting results, they spent untold hours working out their ideas. Two, bureaucrats with little science training are the ones that require scientists to declare results prior to approving funding. What a joke!
Science is about discovery.
Engineering is about inventing.
Not always. The scientists that created the first transistors weren’t “engineers”. They created new knowledge. I was taught semi-conductor physics by a professor who had worked at Bell Labs on semi-conductor tunneling and help create both the math and physical arrangements that allowed it. I still recall having to memorize the diffusion equations associated with it.
Engineers “discover” new ways of doing things rather than basic research.
But were those transistors created by the scientists something that could be manufactured? That is where engineers come in. And I’ve worked on programs where our engineers created new solutions to problems. The line isn’t as clear-cut as some folks would wish.
In our central offices we used to solder incoming lines on one side of a block and lines from the switching machine to the other. An engineer at Western Electric came up with a wire wrap system that worked great and eliminated all the solder mess that occurred when changing assignments. ‘Scientists” later discovered that the sharp edges of the posts “welded” to the wire thereby eliminating corrosion as a problem. Who was the engineer and the scientist?
I took solid state physics from one of those pioneers.
He created the first spice model of a bipolar transistor and did several improvements to it over the years.
An engineer uses tools to create new tools.
Also….
An engineer is one who identifies and solves problems withing a sphere of constraints by those who do not know what the fuck they are doing.
Engineers transform science into technology.
All above are true.
In your list of people, you missed Hedy Lemar – no funding, no agenda, just a good mind and curiosity.
“science journalist Matt Kaplan”
Advice on science from a guy who’s never done any.
I was told that the original advice book and the model for all subsequent ones was
“How to do it and not get it”, written by “One who did it, got it and can’t get rid of it”
There is also the problem of supply and demand, producing more than the system allows. The valuable production of students provided another incentive. Centralization of journals may have been part of problem helping produce the great increase in new ones. Theoretically, education should provide enough review, especially at the graduate level. Examples, at least in some cases, are older ideas outliving their progenitors, how rare requires lots of time. Part of competent mentoring requires an open mind including being understanding of juveniles.
In too many cases teachers were thrown under a bus full of researchers. I saw one example and heard of others.
Relatedly, a scientific article should not be published in a top journal unless it has some potential to advance the science.
There should be other types of journals where humdrum topics like opinion, adding more observations to a data bank, (sometimes) reporting negative results in a hypothesis test – matters that have a low chance of breakthrough advances.
The peer review process in its early forms did weed out lesser papers. Then it became corrupted by reviewers pushing a favourite line and rejecting new thinking. It could be revived in positive form to select for potential to advance science.
The ownership of major scientific journals like Nature and Science has suffered from takeover by a small number of “people on a mission” to promote this or that favourite from time to time. There is an opening for some new journals with a clear dedication to publish mainly papers that might be important in the advancement of science as opposed to more routine logging of housekeeping.
(But then, as an elderly, successful retired scientist who has observed 60:years of this topic, I happily admit to now being more set in my ways, with stronger preferences for fewer options. I published only two formal papers, years ago, before finding peer review opposition to more papers. The force is strong among those with closed minds.). Geoff S
You seem mostly correct and nowadays advancing the science from the originals mentioned seems less likely. I know of a few examples in marine science, mainly but not entirely biological, yet to be properly examined although dated from the late 19th century and even 1950s and 1960s, a point brought up to me recently by a retired younger colleague. Too many journals developed into tribes, if not cabals, but some still publish decent work.
A possible recent example is the journal Harmful Algae (Volume I, 2002) where someone published an exception as if beneficial is odd, maybe just overshadowed. Pure science is not ‘value’ judgement. I have only seen a late effect of one kill, but have examined the literature with no real study. They may be in some rediscovery of the complications as this example suggests– Maze, G., M., J. Olascoaga, and L. Brand. 2015. Historical analysis of environmental conditions during Florida Red Tide. Harmful Algae. 50:1-7.
This author thought that they had important clues but was skeptical about future problem solving. –Walford, L. A. 1958. Living Resources of the Sea. Ronald Press, NY. 321pp. Red tide organism was first cultured in a Galveston federal fishery laboratory in 1957.
All the important things have already been discovered.
How about just removing all or most tax payer funding from science? If citizens, private individuals, corporations etc. want their money invested in science they can do so directly.
Tax-payer money isn’t the problem. Bureaucrats and academics have taken over who controls where the money goes. Most have no idea if grant funds are going to do anything purposeful or not. You end up funding millions to study transgender mice or how covid affects cod fish. I heard those yesterday on an interview with an Oklahoma Senator.
The funding process has totally lost its way. It is one reason that the U.S. has trouble maintaining a scientific lead over China (among other things).
Radical Idea 0.0 – Return to Gold Standard science, following the scientific method.
TIP
Another school bus story. I didn’t read enough to find out what it will cost federal citizen tax-payers.
https://www.pressherald.com/2026/01/31/maine-school-districts-to-get-relief-from-faulty-electric-school-buses/
I don’t understand the idea that a study may be risky. What does that even mean? If a guy comes to you with an idea that others aren’t interested in or claims that seem unlikely I say here show us what you have. If he can’t support his claims it is reasonable to dismiss or disregard them. If he can let’s take another look. Either way we have moved forward. It is just as important, maybe more important, to prove things that are wrong as it is to prove things that are true. One more thing I would guard against telling old people what to do.
Desperate lefties may have a point but more’s the point the under 50s require a refund-
Over-50s should pay a graduate tax
I paid my tuition and loans.
I paid the tuition and loans for my 3 kids. 8 years of payments.
I did without. I sacrificed.
Why should I be taxed?
I am writing as an OLD scientist.
Science does not only rely on brand new ideas, but also on confidence on correctness of undergoing results. Statistics is the basis, but not only the one provided by a single author, but also the one provided by different authors: today the subject of climate change is a good indication.
As a scientist on measurement science at its top level, metrology, I can assess that author age is not a significant parameter in most cases. Personally I changed my field of competence twice after being aged 70, and also found something new/overlooked.
Having said that, I noticed, especially in the last decade, a very large increase of authors from over all the World, coming from a much larger variety of Countries not historically relevant in the past. It may be a mere “bandwagon effect” like it happened for climate, but I can report also cases truly new.
Much of what is called science never tests its hypotheses. Instead it devises elaborate means of making association appear to be causal. Or builds models.
Is there any real science in the climate field?
In other words, “trust me.”
Whoa – you mean that Stephen McIntyre cannot think well anymore?
You need to think deeper – evaluate skills and integrity.
Challenge is how to get more people to do that.