The ironic double meaning of this protest sign ...

The sad fact is that the discipline of science is majorly broken and is unlikely to be fixed in my lifetime …

How many scientists will stand firm and falsify their work or the work of other prominent scientists when that work may represent the entirety of a scientist’s reputation and a lifetime of work.

Consider that individuals can no longer freelance their scientific work without suitable credentials from institutions that derive significant funding from government sources which tacitly forces scientific discovery into acceptable “fashionable science” channels. Scientific work that is likely to shed doubt or falsify these fashionable findings is less likely to be funded or allowed to proceed with a thesis for an advanced degree.

Consider that individual scientists experience extreme peer pressure where they might rather be wrong and included in the mainstream and be invited to the right conferences than stand outside the mainstream and become lonely outcasts.

Consider that the major journals use a referee system consisting of established, often secret, reviewers that may be funded by sources that fund fashionable science institutions, projects, and scientists. Reviewers who are subject to peer pressure and may form a cabal to support their own collective works.

Bottom line …

Like almost everything else, the matter of scientific integrity can be reduced to money, power, position, and politics. I think I will go along with Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman who said, “any discipline with the word science in its title is not likely to be a science.”

We are so screwed.

-- steve