[Tichy]

While I don't trust the government to pick the right things to slash, I am pretty sure there is a lot of bullshit research going on that could easily be slashed. It's probably not effective to not put any constraints on science research at all - there has to be some correcting factor like competition.

[dnautics]

Unfortunately, that's not the case, Study after study shows that individuals in creative endeavours perform more poorly when they are incentivized by performance results (versus mechanical or rote tasks). However, that's not to say that we aren't overinvested in science. We are. I say that as a 2nd year "postdoc" in the biological sciences. The scare quotes are there because I got my job off of craigslist and because we spent the last 10 years creating too many junk PhDs who are just jamming up the hiring pipeline and keeping PhDs who care about intellectual pursuits away. And, yes, my job is really put in danger by this, but I don't care. I'm seeking 100% private, charitable funding for my next scientific endeavor.

[Tichy]

I don't really know what system could work. The current "max out publications" approach apparently doesn't work, as it only leads to mass production with low substance. I guess it is unfortunate that the people with the money (politicians) are not in a position to really judge the science they are supposed to fund. So superficial judging criteria are bound to happen.