SoleInvictus

Tl;dr: imagine the success and continuity of not only your career but the careers of your employees had a significant element of random chance involved. Welcome to research.

Now former scientist here. I see the typical "people would do this anyways" comments but I'd wager they don't understand what it's like to work in science and academia. It's publish or perish. In the United States, it's an absolute capitalist meat grinder and it can be brutal.

As a lead researcher, you are dependent on securing grant money not only to keep your job, but to keep the jobs of your co-workers and the very lab itself afloat.

How do you secure grants? By showing you have the experience and ability to complete the research.

How do you show you have the required experience and ability? By your lab's record of publishing the results of successful research.

What is successful research? In an ideal world, it would be what was found at the end of an investigation, regardless of if it disproves the null hypothesis or not. In reality, it's the results of research that have further application, either in industry or that disprove the null hypothesis and act as a step to get you further related grants.

What happens when an investigation flounders? So you didn't disprove the null hypothesis. In an ideal world, you publish a paper explaining what happened and everyone knows what not to do in the future. In reality, it's basically unpublishable as journals want what will make them money. Your lab now has the research equivalent of a gap in your resume. You continue with other research and hope it is publishable. If your lab has a streak of bad luck and multiple projects crap out, now it's harder to secure grants. The downward spiral begins.

Is what this researcher did wrong? Absolutely, but I get it. I 100% get it.

We need serious reform that removes the profit motive. A functional research system would better catch fabricated results before they're published. It would alleviate the pressures that drive good people to do bad things in the pursuit of doing further good. It would actually enhance scientific discovery as ALL results would be published and without parasitic publishers as unnecessary middlemen.

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Oh! Early morning me misunderstood your comment. I thought you were referring to the author's comment, not the previous commenter. Now I see what you meant.

Not a lawyer but a guy with shoulder problems from teenage antics. I just want to add that you really need to aggressively pursue treatment for that shoulder. The better you handle it now, the more you'll thank yourself.

Please stop spreading misinformation. You're on the internet. Kindly fact check yourself in the future. It's better for everyone, including you!

We had ours during the pandemic. While my friends and coworkers griped about toilet paper shortages, it was like having a hidden superpower.

Don't forget that executive compensation is often significantly comprised of stock or stock options. By feeding the shareholders, they're feeding themselves.

They're making light of the fact that only now has the author come to the conclusion that Trump is a crook, something known by most of the world years, if not decades, ago.

I know they make terrible shirts.

Whoa, that post history. Now I have to wonder if this is a fetish or if OP has an obsessive/compulsive disorder.