[atrettel]

I completely agree that "publish or perish" harms innovation. Funding and research positions have become so predicated on rapid and consistent publication that it incentives researchers to focus on incremental and generally low-risk ideas that they can propose, develop, and publish quickly and predictably. Nobody has the time or energy anymore to focus on bigger and braver (your word) ideas that are less incremental and cannot be developed in predictable time frames.

I agree that many fields essentially have papers as "proof of work", but not all fields are like that. When I worked as a mechanical engineer, publication was "the icing on the cake" and not "the cake itself". It was a nice capstone you do after you have have completed a project, interacted with your customers, built a prototype, filed a patent application, etc. The "proof of work" was the product, basically, and you can build your career by making good products.

Now that I am working as a scientist, I see that many scientists have a different view of what their "product" is. I have always focused on the product being the science itself --- the theories I develop, the experiments and simulations I conduct, etc. But for many scientists, the product is the papers, because that it what people use to evaluate your career. It does not have to be this way, but we would have to shift towards a better definition of what it means to be a productive scientist.