SIZE isn’t everything, you know. Science research may now be driven by “big science” — high-investment multi-institution projects — but not all researchers agree that this is good news.
“A worldwide experiment in academic social engineering” is how Richard Bateman, a senior scientist at a leading London institution, describes big science in The Times Higher Education Supplement (Feb 11).
The slightest whiff of risk will scupper funding plans, Bateman writes, even though science is an inherently risky business. He says that negative results can go unreported in the quest for consistent findings.
“Its most likely victims are creativity and objectivity,” he says, concluding that we now have “an increasingly monotonous science base that is being shorn of its charismatic mavericks”.