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Frank Paynter's avatar

Time for the 'marketplace of ideas' to address this problem by starting another publication that actually values rigor, repeatability and honest peer review. With today's web-based platforms like Substack, the barrier to entry is pretty low, and the market for honest scientific papers is wildly under-served.

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Sharon F.'s avatar

Within my lifetime, I saw funding at USDA intentionally transferred from a program in which research users had a role in determining topics for research to scientists determining it via research panels (supposedly better because the research was “peer reviewed”) in reality, it just transferred decision authority to scientists themselves, who wanted to be cool and publish in eminent journals, even if it never helped any particular human beings. Congress realized this and passed the Fund for Rural America which was supposed to do that.. we actually allowed a few users on research panels. This got some people upset, and at the end the head of the program was fired and we were asked to call the PIs and retract their grants. I left the agency at that time, that was one of the worst experiences of doing something painful to the PIs for no apparent reason except internal politics. Now even Congress, I think, has given up. Patrick has only exposed the tip of the iceberg. Funding of the scientists, by the scientists and for the scientists, indeed!

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