Agreed. I do sometimes wonder if academia shouldn't be blown up and replaced wholesale with something different.
The new thing would have to have different incentives, or the same problems would just re-occur.
The new thing would have to have different incentives, or the same problems would just re-occur.
Some examples of where this is being done: open-access journals, study pre-registration, requirement to publish source code. No one's saying the old way is banned now, it exists in parallel with all those innovations. Some will stick, others will fizzle out.
... then see your new system get attacked from all angles by the existing establishment. Smears on TV, 'fact-checkers' in social networks, bans and cancellations, etc.
The stakeholders of the existing system you are trying to replace won't go quietly into the night.