But sometimes results don't come. Sometimes they are not quite as good as imagined.
Increasing the yields of a reaction is the first little cheat people employ. Another favourite is quoting others without giving credit. But the worst thing is the way people exploit other people to get more publications out. Professors will put their names under publications of their PhD students or postdocs, even when they never had any influence on the work. Of course mostly they did influence the work, and then it's fine, but black sheep exist everywhere. The question is this: Should they be the main credited author of a publication, when basically ALL of the work was done by other people? Of course, they probably gave important tips, steered their people in the right direction, told them what to pursue and what to drop. But does that warrant getting the main credit? This is what I call the "Academic penis extension".
A lot of things go wrong in sciences. Scientists are every bit as human as everybody else, they may be more intelligent than your average Joe, but that doesn't make them better people. Sometimes I think many of the great names in the sciences must be the worst kind of pricks, because it takes one hell of an ambition to be successful nowadays. But they are successful, which justifies that, and noone will ask later if Corey, Grubbs, Schrock, Sharpless, etc. treated their PhD students like shit. The students get a great name as a doctor father, and the professor gets the credit.
All that being said, I still say that advancing the sciences is one of the most important things any human can ever do. And even though scientists may be flawed, at least you can deal with them logically, something you will never be able to do with any avid believer. There is, however, nothing at all romantic left in the sciences. The times when you could just ask questions and find answers are over, and they have been over for a LONG time. Sciences are self-sacrificial to the extreme if you want to end up as a great name - or tag along one.
And don't ever connect me to organic chemistry, organic chemists are no longer human.
j/k
