[ramraj07]

This is very true for _good researchers_. Unfortunately the grant system nowadays does not look kindly to self-doubt: your proposals have to be authoritative and confident for them to be funded; if there's any whiff of a "maybe" there it does not get funded anymore. Thus, professors who are over-confident (or, surprisingly often, even oblivious) about the potential pitfalls in their proposal are more likely to be funded, if they are even proposing something that's novel. Many researchers don't even bother writing the actual proposal, they write a proposal for a projct that's already half way done, so they know for sure it's going to work (and they can also provide preliminary data). When the money comes they will use it for a future project and then repeat the cycle applying for the grant for that project afterwards. Futile cycle to the drain unfortunately.