This post in Nature is about the biological sciences, but it's just as applicable to climate science. The old saw “Follow the money!” leads you to bad science – corrupted science – in both cases.
Systems of incentives are really, really hard to get right. Just ask any manager if you'd like to understand the how and why of that. I was a manager for more years than I care to think about, and putting the right incentives in place for those employees who weren't self-motivated (that would be most of them!) was always an enormous challenge. The failures were much more numerous than the successes.
I've often noted to myself how easy it is to motivate our dogs. Just give them a tiny hint that a dog treat is in the offing, and they're instantly prepared to do absolutely anything that they know now to do. That leads directliy to a desire: for a box of “developer treats” that would work the same way on the developers working for me. Never did find those damned treats...
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Curiosity: Another Close Look at Mars...
Curiosity is pouring science data down to Earth. Here's a close-up look at a Martian rock, courtesy of the Mars Hand Lens Imager:
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