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lm  ·  2676 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Adam Ruben: Another tenure-track scientist bites the dust

    But if you can't justify why you should study it, study something justifiable until you can.

Interdisciplinary work suffers here as well. There are plenty of things worthy of study that are hard to evaluate because they require in-depth knowledge of several fields. I was involved in an industry-funded project that lost funding because the company couldn't find anyone with the skillset required to apply the science we were doing.

And, if $/scientist is low, it's far easier for the people granting grants to justify giving that money to projects that don't break the mold, so to speak.