RE: So you wanted to be a scientist? Let me tell you what's happening in academia today!
Thank you for bringing this up.
For me, this issue is so tired, I don't even feel like mentioning it. The "publish or perish" mentality is in the core of Japanese academia. Institutions get financed for their research output, and there is very little control over the quality of that output (recently, the ministry of education started to address copy and pasting as well as other unethical research and publishing techniques some of which you mentioned, so I have to give them credit for that).
I know that large institutions in Japan also hire based on a point system. Basically, they look at your resume, and the first thing they do is count the number of publications, presentations, etc. Each achievement is worth a certain number of points. The people with the most points go in one pile, with fewer points - in the garbage can. This system is necessary when you have to process over 1000 applications, but as you can assume easily abusable, and that's exactly what is happening. Plus, everyone gets absolutely obsessed with presentations and publications to somehow beef up their resume and show they are active researchers.
Thanks for your comment.
Unfortunately, I have heard that confidence in the results of the paper from Japan (and much more from China) has gone down a lot.
But indeed here in Spain happens the same, quantity above quality.
These systems reward speed and volume of production over the true scientific value of their work.
I think the problem is that recruiters don't have the time to really look into the quality of the publications, so they go for easy metrics.
That seems to be valid for every parts of 'modern' societies. I hate it. Research, work processes have to be fast and cheap instead of focusing on quality, thoroughness and real understanding.
Well, the Japanese research community is doing a good job to keep it contained within Japan - likely to avoid further embarrassment (the Obokata incident, anyone?). I frankly speaking cry when I read articles from humanities here (that's my field, I won't speak for sciences), and you can't but hang your head in despair looking at some graduate theses... I mean, really... Good job devaluating PhDs and Master's even further. As if the production line style of university graduation rates were not harming degree value enough.
Ah, time to go to bed... Can't get too excited here. Japan is a beautiful country if you can do like the three famous monkeys.
Yes, it is sad! It is not the fault of the people, but clearly the system has serious issues.
It pains me that everyone is keeping silent, and even simple questions are not welcome about regarding what this system is doing for us.
This lack of curiousity about our own science system itself is the most unscientific attitude you can imagine.
Talking about this issue, quickly gets you labelled as a subversive, here I thought it was up to scientists to investigate and experiment to find better solutions.
The power of consensus is indeed terrifying.
Yes! Exactly!