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Comment by PicassoCTs | Hacker News Reader

Im advocating for "You keep what you kill" rules in science.

If you disprove a paper or proof a study can not be replicated, you get the funds of the scientist, subtracted from his/her current funding. Make bad science fund the good science and make de-replication a for profit endeavor. There can be all funding in the world for quack science, but if it can be debunked and is debunked, it will finance real science.

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As a thought experiment I think that’s brilliant. As an actual plan though I think it would be terrible. There are so many ways to fail to reproduce an experiment. Incentivising the failure to reproduce is just a very out there idea.

How would this stop fraud? Wouldn't there be a possibility of endless cycles of fraud?

It would be far more effective if you got their citation count instead.

But the untruth of one system, makes the truth of the other not a given. So, transferring funds makes more sense, as it just shifts the chance to be true, towards the more "scientific" part of the system. It also adds lag to the system, so you do not get a constant switching reward functions.

Oh I’m in no way suggesting it’s truth, just that it’s a more tangible reward in current system of academia.

I should have added the inevitable /s. When I transitioned from grad student to faculty, one thing that struck me most was when faculty candidates were discussed in my first year and the first slide about all of them was a histogram of citations. You can hear it all you want but seeing it just crushed my soul a little bit.

So basically, a disprove citation hierarchy, auto-redirects to the theory the disproving author favors? Or just his main work on the topic? What if he has none? I just try to play with the idea, see were it goes. Im sorry if i sound critical or harsh previously, i just try to wrap my head around this..

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