The great majority of federal funds for scientific research are granted or allocated primarily upon the recommendation of reviewers who themselves are scientists working in the field. While far from perfect, the peer-review system largely removes funding decisions from political considerations, and generally ensures that the limited funds for scientific research go to worthy and productive projects. It turns out that this has been a remarkably good assumption. Even though there have been a few high-profile cases of scientific fraud reported in the media, the rate of misconduct in scientific work compared to that in other professions is extremely low. There is a good reason for this.
Scientists publish their work.
In doing so they voluntarily subject it to the scrutiny of their peers, who are free to repeat the work or to use it as a basis for their own investigations. This does not mean that scientific research is free of error. However, the system is self-correcting to a very high degree. While there may well be handsome payoffs from some of this work, they are likely to be relatively far in the future. In its place they suggest that our present science policy should be replaced by a system of top-down governance by agencies at the boundaries of science and government.