Re:Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until p...
by BeetleB on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @12:28AM
(#27890068)
From what I saw while pursuing a PhD, what he says is true for some fields (I was in a hard science).
Disagreeing with status quo is given lip service, but in my particular subdiscipline, I saw trendy theories come and go. It certainly was more work to get published if your paper suggests the trend is not true (more likely to argue with referees, etc). This is common when experimental data is not available.
> You suggest how scientists will lose grants if they produce inconvenient science
Again, not a direct connection in my discipline, but trendy work is easier to get funding, and if you counter the trend, you'll have trouble getting papers published in good journals, which affects your funding.
In my time there, the common advice to new faculty members was "Do fun/risky research only after you get tenure."
Disagreeing with status quo is given lip service, but in my particular subdiscipline, I saw trendy theories come and go. It certainly was more work to get published if your paper suggests the trend is not true (more likely to argue with referees, etc). This is common when experimental data is not available.
> You suggest how scientists will lose grants if they produce inconvenient science
Again, not a direct connection in my discipline, but trendy work is easier to get funding, and if you counter the trend, you'll have trouble getting papers published in good journals, which affects your funding.
In my time there, the common advice to new faculty members was "Do fun/risky research only after you get tenure."