It was shown recently that many scientific papers are full of crap and that the entire process of reviewing them is full of loopholes, allowing for a perpetual “I copy from you, you copy from me” type of mutual gratification that has nothing to do with actual science.
The whole system encourages such behavior: you need to publish to get a position, you need to publish to get funded, you need to publish to get exposure, your university and your department need you to publish to climb the rankings…
In the end, there just isn’t enough material to justify that many publications or to allow a proper peer-review of all papers
There’s a bit more as well. Corporations have been closing their research labs over several decades and chasing short term profits over longer-term-payoff research. All that risk is passed onto university research labs (and the grad students that actually do the work) and heavily subsidized by the government. There is then little to no incentive for a professor to care about teaching and is rewarded for bringing in grant money. Students incentives are papers (and the prestige that follows) and the machine is born.
Basically, the neoliberal project is moving the risk of research out of corporations and the public pays for it.
It was shown recently that many scientific papers are full of crap and that the entire process of reviewing them is full of loopholes, allowing for a perpetual “I copy from you, you copy from me” type of mutual gratification that has nothing to do with actual science.
The whole system encourages such behavior: you need to publish to get a position, you need to publish to get funded, you need to publish to get exposure, your university and your department need you to publish to climb the rankings… In the end, there just isn’t enough material to justify that many publications or to allow a proper peer-review of all papers
There’s a bit more as well. Corporations have been closing their research labs over several decades and chasing short term profits over longer-term-payoff research. All that risk is passed onto university research labs (and the grad students that actually do the work) and heavily subsidized by the government. There is then little to no incentive for a professor to care about teaching and is rewarded for bringing in grant money. Students incentives are papers (and the prestige that follows) and the machine is born.
Basically, the neoliberal project is moving the risk of research out of corporations and the public pays for it.