Science should be more like this, in current times, yes.
But until much of academia is burned to the ground, or until science can be properly separated from modern academia, this will never be so. The current academic incentives are all wrong: low-quality research is rewarded and results in publications, whereas high-quality research (that takes time, and usually reveals that most exciting publications depend on p-hacking or other highly data-dependent analyses and selective presentations) is not published or actively blocked during peer review.
So instead you get BS arguments about how data can't be released for various privacy concerns (when in reality the vast majority of most datasets are trivial to scrub of identifying factors, and even in more complex datasets where you need to consider k-anonymity, it is still trivial to release data that allows replication of core analyses), and academic science is increasingly irrelevant unless it is tied to tech and industry, where producing junk actually has real negative economic and personal consequences.
I don't know what world this article / post lives in, but it isn't the messy world of actual reality.
I agree that a lot of the practices in academia are misaligned with the original goal. But can't you say that for other systems/institutions as well?
Point being, what about keeping the scientific method as the north star - as a good heuristic to avoid BS arguments and awarding low-quality research. And, crucially, to stay sane. My post is pretty naive, but I stand by the ideal of pushing knowledge as reproducible models.
Of course, every area has similar issues. The main unique problem with (contemporary) academia is the one I mentioned:
> tech and industry, where producing junk actually has real negative economic and personal consequences
In academia, you can just endlessly produce low-quality garbage, and basically make a career out of this. In industry, things more often eventually at least have to work and survive contact with reality. Academia mostly lacks this basic check.
The scientific method should be the north star, sure. Much of what is happening in academia is cargo-cult / degenerate / pathological science though.
D-Machine · · focus · HN ↗
But until much of academia is burned to the ground, or until science can be properly separated from modern academia, this will never be so. The current academic incentives are all wrong: low-quality research is rewarded and results in publications, whereas high-quality research (that takes time, and usually reveals that most exciting publications depend on p-hacking or other highly data-dependent analyses and selective presentations) is not published or actively blocked during peer review.
So instead you get BS arguments about how data can't be released for various privacy concerns (when in reality the vast majority of most datasets are trivial to scrub of identifying factors, and even in more complex datasets where you need to consider k-anonymity, it is still trivial to release data that allows replication of core analyses), and academic science is increasingly irrelevant unless it is tied to tech and industry, where producing junk actually has real negative economic and personal consequences.
I don't know what world this article / post lives in, but it isn't the messy world of actual reality.
jegp · · focus · HN ↗
D-Machine · · focus · HN ↗
> tech and industry, where producing junk actually has real negative economic and personal consequences
In academia, you can just endlessly produce low-quality garbage, and basically make a career out of this. In industry, things more often eventually at least have to work and survive contact with reality. Academia mostly lacks this basic check.
The scientific method should be the north star, sure. Much of what is happening in academia is cargo-cult / degenerate / pathological science though.