[hughw]

I had hoped to read one of those occasional lists of the hard, outstanding problems scientists still need to solve, in biology, say, or physics. Instead, it's a list of meta "problems" like science funding, or poor study designs.

[whorleater]

"Hard" problems can be eventually solved through tenacity, funding can't. Funnily enough, in my experience funding and proper experimental design is the hardest part of solving a problem.

[PeterWhittaker]

I expected the "hard list" as well.

And got one, just not the one I expected.

There are multiple crises in science these days, whether of communication or recruitment or replication or of fraud or of anti-intellectualism fueled in part by the most egregious examples of these problems.

Fixing these problems, addressing these seven, would do much to restore the lustre and respect and authority science well done and scientists working well deserve.

[Strilanc]

Wikipedia has a list for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_problems

[danieltillett]

The only problem in science is funding. Everything else is an opportunity.

[veddox]

If we had unlimited funding, most of the other problems would indeed take care of themselves. The problem is the "unlimited" part...

[danieltillett]

The problem is not only the level of funding, but they way the funding is distributed. Science could live happily with the current expenditure if the way the funding was distributed was smarter.

[mac01021]

And funding is not?

[danieltillett]

Well the general lack of funding and the way the limited funding is distributed is the ultimate cause of all the problems of science.

I guess solving the funding problem is an opportunity, but it seems to be beyond us.