by godelski | 2026-03-11 19:48:12+00:00
> Most will refuse to publish replications, negative studies, or anything they deem unimportant, even if the study was conducted correctly.

I think this was really caused by the rise of bureaucracy in academia. Bureaucrats favorite thing is a measurement, especially when they don't understand its meaning. There's always been a drive for novelty in academia, it's just at the very core of the game. But we placed far too much focus on this, despite the foundation of science being replication. We made a trade, foundation for (the illusion of) progress. It's like trying to build a skyscraper higher and higher without concern for the ground it stands on. Doesn't take a genius to tell you that building is going to come crashing down. But proponents say "it hasn't yet! If it was going to fall it would have already" while critics are actually saying "we can't tell you when it'll fall, but there's some concerning cracks and we're worried it'll collapse and we won't even be able to tell we're in a pile of rubble."

I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that our fear of people wasting money and creating fraudulent studies has only resulted in wasting money and fraudulent studies. We've removed the verification system while creating strong incentives to cheat (punish or perish, right?).

I think one thing we do need to recognize is that in the grand scheme of things, academia isn't very expensive. A small percentage of a large number is still a large number. Even if half of academics were frauds it would be a small percentage of waste, and pale in comparison to more common waste, fraud, and abuse of government funds.

From what I can tell, the US spent $60bn for University R&D in 2023[0]. But in that same time there was $400bn in waste and fraud through Covid relief funds [1]. With $280bn being straight up fraud. That alone is more than 4x of all academic research funding!!!

I'm unconvinced most in academia are motivated by money or prestige, as it's a terrible way to achieve those things. But I am convinced people are likely to commit fraud when their livelihoods are at stake or when they can believe that a small lie now will allow them to continue doing their work. So as I see it, the publish or perish paradigm only promotes the former. The lack of replication only allows, and even normalizes, the latter. The stress for novelty only makes academics try to write more like business people, trying to sell their product in some perverse rat race.

So I think we have to be a bit honest here. Even if we were to naively make this space essentially unregulated it couldn't be the pinnacle of waste, fraud, and abuse that many claim it is. But I doubt even letting scientists be entirely free from publication requirements that you'd find much waste, fraud, and abuse. Science has a naturally regulating structure. It was literally created to be that way! We got to where we are in through this self regulating system because scientists love to argue about who is right and the process of science is meant to do exactly that. Was there waste and fraud in the past? Yes. I don't think it's entirely avoidable, it'll never be $0 of waste money. But the system was undoubtably successful. And those that took advantage of the system were better at fooling the public than they were their fellow scientists. Which is something I think we've still failed to catch onto

[0] https://usafacts.org/articles/what-do-universities-do-with-t...

[1] https://apnews.com/article/pandemic-fraud-waste-billions-sma...