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by autoexec 999 days ago
> That doesn't mean you're a bad scientist, just an unlucky one. But it does mean you can't get tenure.

That sounds like a really easy problem to solve. Just treat valid science as important regardless of the results. The results shouldn't matter unless they've been replicated and verified anyway.

2 comments

It's a really easy solution to describe.

Actually implementing it across the academic world seems much harder.

Too easy. Define "valid" though.
Valid as in meaningfully peer reviewed to avoid flawed/badly designed studies as well as total garbage (for example https://nerdist.com/article/fake-star-wars-midi-chlorian-pap...) but the gold standard should be replication.

We should reward quality work, not simply the number of research papers (since it's easy to churn out trash) or what the results are (because until they are verified they could be faked).

I wholeheartedly agree.