Once again, there is merit to cutting funding when more than half of research is irreproducible crap. A decimation can function as the first step toward rebuilding. The problem is that you DO need to have plans to rebuild it. We don't.
Edit: as a follow up (because I feel like I strawmanned you), I am just trying to say that p-hacking is not always malice or incompetence. Sometimes limited methods/theory miss confounding variables, sometimes labs lack resources, etc.
... but it won't be.
Talking about rebuilding after just shifts this problem instead of solving it. When you start to spin things back up, who's at the front of the line looking for new grant money?
Most research is still following a medical model that worked for infectious diseases in the 1950s but does not yield any meaningful information or treatments for chronic, complex disorders that have multiple interrelated factors.
And since doctors are trained primarily in the treatment of acute diseases, even the useful information that’s found by research is largely ignored in practice. The ignorance of the average MD about chronic illnesses is astounding.
I’ve been sick for the last two years and I’ve given up going to doctors. They are a waste of my time. I’ve done much better by doing my own research and treating myself. Much of what’s helped has been stuff that I’ve seen described as pseudoscience, even though it’s empirically based, because there aren’t enough RCTs for it to qualify as “evidence”. This makes me incredibly angry.
The system is utterly broken. I’d like to scrap the whole thing and start over. Hopefully, we’ll find a way to start over when the smoke clears.