it's almost like our fav person Ayn Rand got that right [0]. Wat is pure science? It's little without a consciousness and there are a lot of perverse stimuli. For one, I found the requirement to publish (something "worthwhile", which is subjective) during my PhD so stupid. You can work hard and cleverly in science for 4 years yet only debunk stuff or not even find anything at all (but that by itself should be publishable!) or you can get lucky and publish a lot. All the publish-or-perish pressure does is force subpar stuff into the community. Like you two, I also got a bit disillusioned with non-applied science as we have it.

Edit: I don't want to say (like Ayn Rand, who can be pretty black and white) that it is all bad and we should do away with it, but it's something we should be very aware of and try to build in mechanisms to protect ourselves from these effects.

[0]: https://www.conservapedia.com/State_Science_Institute#Typolo...