In today's world, a culture of innovation is integral to advancement at the same rate that we've seen in the past century, especially in the medical field. Unfortunately, some scientists have done a few unethical things in the past; because of this, we've decided to severely restrict all scientific research. Here is how we're giving our scientists incentive to restrict themselves:
The members of Institutional Research Boards (IRBs), which supervise all human-related research, are made up of lawyers and not scientists. This gives them an incentive to reject anything that they think might become a legal liability, without any knowledge of the scientific background. For example, one of my projects was recently rejected because nobody had ever done it before, so they couldn't be sure that it was safe (despite the fact that any knowledgeable doctor/scientist could tell you that there were no risks involved). In summary: they wouldn't let me do it because nobody has done it before… if that's our attitude, then how will we ever move forward?
The IRBs are deathly afraid of interfering with patient care. They once rejected my research proposal because I needed to analyze the patients' snot (yes, their snot) . Normally, the nurses just throw it away… but I couldn't get IRB approval to analyze the trash.
As I wrote previously, the current peer-review system, because it is run by private journals instead of a public library (which the National Institute of Health is working on, but they don't have enough political support), takes months or years to make "novel" research available to the scientific community. This slows down every process, since my research (which takes a year to publish) is usually based on somebody else's research (which takes a year to publish), which is based on somebody else's research (which takes a year to publish), and so on.
Because of this slowdown, researchers have a strong incentive to wait until they have a lot of data before they publish any of it. This means that a very simple experiment must be repeated many times before it can be shared with other scientists; I have my name on one important paper, for example, that was written in 1997 but still hasn't been published because the lab doesn't have the resources to repeat one insignificant (but expensive) experiment. If we could just put our data into a public library of science, then other scientists could use it in their research… but the private journals want control over all information.
This slowdown also causes many different scientists to perform the exact same experiment because they don't know that anybody else is doing it.
The National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation are always low on manpower and money. This is because to train a good scientist, it takes about 12-16 years (4 years of undergrad, 4-6 years of grad school, 4-6 years of postdoctoral fellowship) and they end up getting paid less than a person with an MBA, which is much easier to get. If we raised scientists' salaries, we'd have much more incentive for people to go down that track… but that would require more tax money.
Pursuit of tenure is the main incentive for young scientists to succeed in their research. Unfortunately, most universities only offer tenure to people who publish a lot of papers and the quality of the research is less of a factor. This causes scientists to spend their effort on easy, quick research instead of slower, more important projects. I'll cite the example of my boss: after he became a professor, he came up with a great idea and decided to pursue it. He published a few groundbreaking papers and filed a patent, but was denied tenure because he failed to publish the minimum of 12 papers in his first 7 years. Now, his patent has brought the university $10 million in the last three years (no other patents even brought $500,000 last year) and will bring at least another $40 million over the next 10 years. If he'd pursued the expected plan instead of trying to get his invention off the ground, that $50 million would have ended up going to a drug company. Because of those first 7 years, he is no longer eligible for tenure.
Most researchers are always competing with each other for grants. For this reason, they have a strong incentive not to share their research with other scientists until it's published… they're afraid of their ideas being stolen.
Most of these problems are caused by rules and regulations. The rules are written like that because they want to avoid any possible legal/ethical problems and because they want to save money wherever possible. Tomorrow I'll write about my proposed solutions (I promise that tomorrow's post will be shorter).
EDIT: Click here for the post with the proposed solutions.
Shan-ul-Hai, the chief author of Globally Rational, is a self-described cosmopolitan scientist. His articles typically involve the application of evidence-based logic to some of the world's most interesting and thought-provoking affairs. His background as a Pakistani-American supplements his training as a scientist and his skill as a writer, leading to a myriad of of unique perspectives.
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