学进去

Why isn’t science better? Look at career incentives.

There are often substantial gaps between the idealized and actual versions of those people whose work involves providing a social good. Government officials are supposed to work for their constituents. Journalists are supposed to provide unbiased reporting and penetrating analysis. And scientists are supposed to relentlessly probe the fabric of reality with the most rigorous and skeptical of methods.

All too often, however, what should be just isn’t so. In a number of scientific fields, published findings turn out not to replicate (复制), or to have smaller effects than, what was initially claimed. Plenty of science does replicate — meaning the experiments turn out the same way when you repeat them — but the amount that doesn’t is too much for comfort.

But there are also ways in which scientists increase their chances of getting it wrong. Running studies with small samples, mining data for correlations and forming hypotheses to fit an experiment’s results after the fact are just some of the ways to increase the number of false discoveries.

It’s not like we don’t know how to do better. Scientists who study scientific methods have known about feasible remedies for decades. Unfortunately, their advice often falls on deaf ears. Why? Why aren’t scientific methods better than they are? In a word: incentives. But perhaps not in the way you think.

In the 1970s, psychologists and economists began to point out the danger in relying on quantitative measures for social decision-making. For example, when public schools are evaluated by students’ performance on standardized tests, teachers respond by teaching “to the test”. In turn, the test serves largely as of how well the school can prepare students for the test.

We can see this principle—often summarized as “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”—playing out in the realm of research. Science is a competitive enterprise. There are far more credentialed (授以证书的) scholars and researchers than there are university professorships or comparably prestigious research positions. Once someone acquires a research position, there is additional competition for tenure (终身教授) grant funding, and support and placement for graduate students. Due to this competition for resources, scientists must be evaluated and compared. How do you tell if someone is a good scientist?

An oft-used metric (标准，度量) is the number of publications one has in peer-reviewed journals, as well as the status of those journals. Metrics like these make it straightforward to compare researchers whose work may otherwise be quite different. Unfortunately, this also makes these numbers susceptible to exploitation.

If scientists are motivated to publish often and in high-impact journals, we might expect them to actively try to game the system (钻空子). And certainly, some do—as seen in recent high-profile cases of scientific fraud (欺诈). If malicious (恶意的) fraud is the prime concern, then perhaps the solution is simply heightened alertness.

However, most scientists are, I believe, genuinely interested in learning about the world, and honest. The problem with incentives is that they can shape cultural norms without any intention on the part of individuals.

1．Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Scientists are expected to persistently devoted to exploration of reality.

B．The research findings fail to achieve the expected effect.

C．Hypotheses are modified to highlight the experiments’ results.

D．The amount of science that does replicate is comforting.

2．What does deaf ears in the fourth paragraph probably refer to?

A．The public.	B．The incentive initiators.
C．The peer researchers.	D．The high-impact journal editors.

3．Which of the following does the author probably agree with?

A．Good scientists excel in seeking resources and securing research positions.

B．Competition for resources pushes researchers to publish in a more productive way.

C．All the credentialed scholars and researchers will take up university professorships.

D．The number of publication reveals how scientists are bitterly exploited.

4．According to the author, what might be a remedy for the fundamental problem in scientific research?

A．High-impact journals are encouraged to reform the incentives for publication.

B．The peer-review process is supposed to scale up inspection of scientific fraud.

C．Researchers are motivated to get actively involved in gaming the current system.

D．Career incentives for scientists are expected to consider their personal intention.