Mismatch in scientific career path between what's good for individuals and what's good for science may be the biggest reason for collapse in research ROI. Status quo is bad for both: career path sucks, and it also strongly incentivizes mediocre, business-as-usual research.https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/1063424796891860994 …
The “low-hanging fruit” argument certainly seems to apply to fundamental physics. But there’s new fields always opening up. So does it apply to science overall? I don’t know, and don’t know how we could know, but it doesn’t seem to matter for “how can we do better?”