The main problem is the incentives.  A researcher&#x27;s future employment is dependent on their list of publications.<p>The question that researchers face is not &#x27;how best can I contribute to science?&#x27; but is instead &#x27;what can I get published?&#x27;.  Anyone naive&#x2F;stubborn&#x2F;foolish enough to focus on the former question will be weeded out by the system, unless they are exceptionally good.<p>We shouldn&#x27;t be surprised by the outcomes we see:  &#x27;p-value hacking&#x27;, accepting significant results straight away but fiddling with results you do not like until they become publishable, not wanting to &#x27;waste time&#x27; demonstrating that someone else&#x27;s research isn&#x27;t really reproducible, not publishing negative (i.e. unsuccessful) results etc etc.<p>I wish I had an easy solution for this problem, but I do not see one - the hiring metric of &#x27;how many publications do you have?  which journals?&#x27; is a nice simple one, that administrators and funding agencies like to use, for all that it leads to bad incentives and actions.