Wow, there is a lot of negativity towards science in this thread. Um, yeah, it could be better. But it's mostly a matter of personal courage. Of course institutional funding is not the best incentive for the best science. Good science comes from courageous individuals in courageous communities. Not financial incentives. Good science takes courage.
We would rightfully mock a company that said that its turnover problem, its innovation problem, or its project failure problem was due to a lack of courage among its workers.
Guys, you dont get it. Science isn't government work. In fact, to the extent that it is bureaucracy work, it is doing fine. But it is so much bigger than that.
I agree with 'courage', but the problem is that it all depends on the courage of the people with money rather than the courage of the researcher. Someone has to take the risk and hire you for a tenure track position, and someone has to choose you over someone else (from a better school? with a more en-vogue topic?) for giving out grant money. Ideally it should be a meritocracy, but how do you prove in advance what is good research? And I guess, then it often boils down to 'no one ever got fired for buying IBM'.
