This system is one of the primary reasons I decided not to go into academia
Scientists have been looking for funding since before the scientific method existed. Leonardo Da Vinci had patrons
Hey, some of the most famous scientists were rich as fuck and were doing research basically as a hobby.
Science batman
“what happened to you, academia? You used to be about the science. Now you’re just about the money.”
It’s inherent to grants. If you want scientists to choose their topics you have to fund them unconditionally.
People will always optimize their methods to maximize resource gain. It’s a fact of life since the dawn of life. Even animals do this.
I’ve seen cancer researchers lie to people with dead loved ones to get funding. I’ve seen physicists do bogus experiments that yield nothing with a nice dark matter story just to get funding… it’s become marketing at this stage.
This is my problem with climate change research. Those who attempt to oppose the “narrative” never get funding. How are we supposed to claim science is unbiased when bias is what’s making the results come out?