Doesn't science need its conscience keepers?

The strongest aspect of humans is perhaps that their intelligence is multifaceted. There is so much diversity in human activity that sometimes it becomes hard to believe that all humans are actually of the same species! Humans are good at dance, music, painting, computer programs and many other fields. Among all these fields of human activity, one that stands truly apart and in a unique position is the pursuit of science. Science is undoubtedly one of the biggest contributors to the progress of human civilisation right from the very start. The discovery of the wheel and ancient metallurgy was no less a scientific achievement compared to modern day rockets and smartphones. Despite all these immense achievements, science is facing a huge problem today. Science has provided immensely useful tools to study almost all the material aspects of nature. We can very accurately measure temperature of an object, the length of even tiny bacteria, and even the distance to stars many light years away. But science is finding it increasingly difficult to measure its own worth. There is so much new science being produced everyday by thousands of scientists around the world that it has become a real problem to assess which of these contributions are worthy of praise and which are not. And those that are worthy, how much praise do they really deserve? 

One may think that this problem perhaps plagues almost all aspects of human endeavours. But thats not true. Science suffers from this problem like no other. And thats because science has a serious lacuna, which is that it is only other scientists who can appreciate science. And not just that, in today's world of super-specialisation, new work in a certain area can only be appreciated by scientists who work in that very area. This is a problem for two reasons. Firstly, due to this, a lot of power gets concentrated in the hands of very few people who decide whats good research and whats not. And just imagine the amount of money in form of research grants thats at stake! Just because they are reputed scientists doesn't really mean much since as they say, 'absolute power corrupts absolutely'. History has clearly shown that intelligent, well educated people are certainly not immune from this basic human tendency. Secondly, it can become very hard to get honest feedback specially in fields where most researchers know each other. If one of them tries to be too frank, there are good chances that his/her research will suffer in ways more than one. 

This situation in science is very different from that in other fields. Cinema is perhaps a good area to compare with since its impact on human life is also very high. The success of a movie is measured on two parameters : box office collections and critics ratings. Citations of research papers in science is perhaps like the box office collections and feedback from peers can count for critics ratings. So, there does exist a similarity. However, there is one major difference. In cinema, the people who watch the movies and/or criticise them are not movie makers themselves. So there are much higher chances of getting honest feedback. A movie critic has nothing to fear if s/he gives a low rating to a movie. But as mentioned earlier, this is unlike the case in science where honest feedback can have negative repercussions. So scientists often end up patting each other's back, hoping for the favour to be returned. Now of course one can argue that this is not a problem at the top universities in the world which make sure to maintain very high standards. And this is certainly true. But the problem they face is that they often end up working only on problems which are considered good enough by their peers, which is a very small community. There is very little incentive to work on problems that are equally hard and important, but not considered good enough by the community. 

So what do we do? A lesson from cinema is that it is very important to have independent critics evaluate our work. Now how is that possible? The general public surely doesn't have the background to evaluate new research. And neither do undergraduate students. Perhaps the only way to make this happen is to create a cadre of teachers who understand the depths of research but are themselves not into it. The current university system gives very little importance to teaching. A professor's worth is largely measured based on his/her research capabilities. Many universities even have research positions with no teaching load. But there are hardly any universities which have teaching positions with no research load. And even those that have these positions, treat their teachers as second citizens, way below the level of the divine beings who do research, no matter how meaningless that research is. 

The way forward is for every university to have teaching positions where the teachers are expected not just to teach but also regularly evaluate new research and make their opinions public. They should not be expected to do any research on their own, and actually not allowed to since then there will be the same conflict of interest. Those who get interested in research later on can be offered the regular faculty position. Science needs a large number of conscience keepers. The sooner we get it the better it will be. People used to be in awe of kings and queens till a few decades back. Now we look upon our political leaders with distrust. The same may happen with science. Currently, scientists are respected all over the world and looked up to for inspiration. But it doesn't take too long for people's perspectives to change. 

We can either plug the holes or merrily sink with the Titanic! 

Oh.. we already hit the iceberg sometime back!!