Like any field and probably contrary to beliefs, life in
research is very frustrating. The chances of success are minimal. The scientists
not only need to worry about the failed experiments but also worry about the
peer pressure, the rat race to publish and publish for the sake of getting new
grants and also continuance of the old grants. After all a scientist is worth
how much grants he has or how many publications he has.
But in doing all this, we as scientific community are doing
a great disservice to the field of science. Many of the published articles are
either not genuine or are not reproducible. The beauty of research is that an
observation in one part of the world can and should be faithfully reproduced
anywhere else provided the reagents are of the same quality and of course the
experiments are repeated as were done in the original research. However, still,
most of the research goes the non-reproducible way!!! Now this is a big blot on
the credibility of the scientific research community. The basic research is the
template on which newer medicines would be based. And one recent article in
Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328)
highlights the pitfalls of such a alarming scenario.
There needs to be a mechanism that would and should delink a
scientists’ credibility from the number of research articles published
otherwise this problem can take a serious turn for the worse!!!!
