Here are the problems from an insider:
1)
Funding
This is the biggest one. Science is not cheap. Good science is REALLY not cheap. Your instruments need to be good, and a centrifuge, the most basic of scientific equipment, can cost you 8k. 'But asshole,' you might say. 'Centrifuges can be cheap!' Yeah, they can be cheap. If you don't want one that's refrigerated or can spin at high G's. Both of which are required if you want to do anything resembling actual research. Also, the cheaper the equipment, the more time your research will take because of labor you have to commit to it.
The problem is because funding is growing tighter and tighter, more daring and 'out there' research becomes less and less common, because no one is funding risky sorts of projects. This leads people to pursue 'safe' research.
Nearly all fudging of numbers is because funding is hard to come by. You have to make your initial experiments look good to get money. Many scientists are extremely desperate so they twist results so they can get money and 'prove' their hypothesis. Note, this is ESPECIALLY bad in cancer research particularly, which is going through somewhat of a crisis since funding in that area is hotly contested.
Universities typically don't fund you, I'm in a rare university that gives a lab budget, which is about ~$700 per week. This is LAUGHABLY low. If you want to fix problems with science, you have to start with the money issue. It is the number 1 problem plaguing it.
And for faggot lolbertarians, no, private interests cannot correct this. It is a problem on the national level. Not to mention private interests only compound problems. A few rich billionaires cannot fix a problem that is on the national scale.
2)
Publish or Perish in Academic Research
To survive in academic research, you have to publish as much as you can. This leads to scientists splitting one experiment into multiple papers. It also leads to re-configuring or re-tooling data for multiple experiments into one. The fact of pumping out multiple articles is harming science as a whole.
3)
No Money for Replication
Replication is one of the hallmarks of something solid. If something is repeatable, it is accepted. Unfortunately, replication doesn't happen often enough. Studies sit around going unreplicated because it is expensive to replicate and it usually isn't done unless someone is interested. Or something is so powerful that its goes against politics to replicate it. See Theranos.
Also cancer and psychology in particular are undergoing replication problems as in 60-70% of psychology papers can't be repeated.
4)
Immortal Cell Line HeLa is wreaking massive havoc
HeLa cells, or so-called immortal cell lines have wreaked massive havoc on modern day cell lines. Its estimated that 20% of all Cell Lines are contaminated with HeLa. HeLa cells, named after Henrietta Lacks, is an extremely important cell line based off cervical cancer. However, when I say immortal, I mean it. These cells have been found floating alive in liquid nitrogen, have traveled from different buildings in the same complex on labcoats and gone on different floors of labs.
This calls into questions thousands of results of papers as the cells they've been using may have been HeLa instead of the cells they thought they were. In the end, Henrietta Lacks was exploited for her cells, so she gets to have the last laugh. Probably for eternity.
5)
Failure is Unreported
Sometimes hypothesis don't work out. But that's ok, that's why we do science. However, failure is just as important as success in understanding scientific phenomenon. Unfortunately, people don't want to pay for what's good in science so failure oftentimes goes unreported and unpublished. Failing in something is a very important part. And we forgo that a lot because we need money.
7)
Politics from Within and From Without
If you're looking to challenge a long-standing scientific theory, prepare for hell on Earth. Everyone will stand in your way, you'll get shouted down from he rooftops, called a cook, a crazy person and get your funding pulled. Scientific orthodoxy, once established, is INCREDIBLY difficult to challenge. Partially because a lot of research is based on that orthodoxy and because resources are scarce, people tend to get pissed if you're going against something established.
For example, ulcers aren't caused by stress typically, 70-80% of all ulcers are caused by a bacterial infection. There was an Australian scientist who challenged this. They called him an idiot, a retard, completely wrong and a waste of time. To prove them wrong, he swallowed a tube of bacteria. Next day, he was riddled with ulcers. Another example is a cycle called the Krebs Cycle. This is part of how we gain energy from respiration. Its complicated biochemistry, but lets just say people thought Krebs, the guy proposing it, was a fucking moron who was a terrible researcher. He got rejected from Nature with a nasty letter. Later on, he would go on to win the Noble prize for proving this to be correct. He framed his rejection letter in his lab.
Its this difficult to go against the prevailing orthodoxy. The stronger the theory, the heavier resistance will be. Also scientists all hold fast to extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Which they do, but the arrogance surrounding this is off-putting.
There's also politics from without, as in, outside influences. People will pay for studies to have them done, governmental organizations and political movements. They will try to bend science to its will because it is viewed as the ultimate arbiter of human truth. Which I hope with this post, you'll see that it isn't.
In the end, science is run by humans. We try the best we can, it'll always be flawed, but its the best we have. And as a scientist: Always be skeptical.
I'd say the wrongfully called "hard sciences" are way less accurate than social sciences as all factual knowledge comes from reason and intuition like Mathematics, not from empirical evidence obtained through perception. See how Physics prostitutes Mathematics.
Theorical models, rather than being oversimplifying they're the most accurate representation of the world itself, which is Mathematical, and theorical models are not polluted by empirical nonsense and the delusions of perception.
But I guess my autism is too advanced for you, keep living in your normie realm with your "epic wholesome 100 facts and logic" *tips le fedora*
Reason and intuition need to be tested. You can't rely on those alone, which is where the massive fault of social sciences comes in. Miasma theory of disease and pretty much everything wrong like Lysenkoism has been 'reasoned' and 'intuitioned'. You have to test it. Without testing it, its useless. It makes sense that if I work out and get strong, my offspring will get strong too. That can be reasoned and based off intuition. Its also completely wrong.
Everything, including mathematics is colored by our perception. We do the best we can and it is never going to change because we're human beings with emotions and our views are shaped by varying experiences. Science, much like capitalism for economics, is the best system we have for exploring the world. It isn't going to be perfect. Also mathematics still relies on tangible observation, even indirect observation.
Your premises are fundamentally false. We don't have Laplace's Demon or anything close to that level of perfection. Even theoretical models have been corrupted by people and aren't isolated from perception. You're not going to get around it. Even computers programmed by humans will always be imperfect and won't be free of it.
Data will always need interpretation and people will be doing that interpretation. You just sound like a bitter mathematician. Which makes sense, since all mathematicians are bitter.
