A recent commentary critiqued the embrace of performance metrics at research universities. Drawing on our research studying the metascience movement, we suggest that the drive to maximize efficiency in science is increasingly extending beyond performance metrics, into labs themselves. Because institutional and public audiences are predisposed to viewing science in simple terms, it can be challenging for scientists to articulate counterarguments to policies that increase transparency and accountability in the name of efficiency. This short piece offers a sketch of an argument against treating efficiency as the lodestar for science.
BowlesS (2016) The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
2.
CallonM (1986) Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc bay. In: LawJ (ed.) Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 196–233.
3.
ColeS (1992) Making Science: Between Nature and Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
4.
HallonstenO (2021) Stop evaluating science: A historical-sociological argument. Social Science Information60(1): 7–26.
5.
HarrisR (2017) Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions. New York: Basic Books.
6.
IoannidisJPA (2012) Why science is not necessarily self-correcting. Perspectives on Psychological Science7(6): 645–654.
7.
IoannidisJPAFanelliDDunneDD, et al. (2015) Meta-research: Evaluation and improvement of research methods and practices. PLOS Biology13(10): e1002264.
8.
KitcherP (1995) The Advancement of Science-Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9.
LatourB (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
10.
MunafòMRNosekBABishopDVM, et al. (2017) A manifesto for reproducible science. Nature Human Behaviour1(1): 0021.
11.
NosekBASpiesJRMotylM (2012) Scientific utopia: II. Restructuring incentives and practices to promote truth over publishability. Perspectives on Psychological Science7(6): 615–631.
12.
OakeshottM (1991) Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. Carmel, Indiana: Liberty Fund.
13.
PetersonDPanofskyA (2020) Metascience as a scientific social movement. SocArXiv. DOI:10.31235/osf.io/4dsqa
14.
PetersonDPanofskyA (2021) Self-correction in science: The diagnostic and integrative motives for replication. Social Studies of Science. DOI:10.1177/03063127211005551
15.
PolanyiM (1962) The republic of science. Minerva1(1): 54–73.
16.
PopperK (1957) The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge.
17.
StarSGriesemerJ (1989) Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science19(3): 387–420.
18.
ThorpeC (2008) Political theory in science and technology studies. In: FeltUFouchéTMillerCA (eds) The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 63–82.
19.
WoodwardJ (2005) Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
