Science’s Shameful Secret

Everyday, checking; everyday, hoping. When the acceptance email from the journal finally arrived, a feeling of elation.

“Getting your first paper published in a major journal is a career milestone, and seeing all those months of work in the lab finally in print is so satisfying. But there’s a pressure, too — I had to get this paper published, because my work needs funding.”

It was this pressure that means she won’t let me use her name, for fear of repercussions. For a young evolutionary biologist, research is paid for through grants from a research council. There are seven in the UK, which together fund around three billion pounds of scientific research every year with taxpayer money.

Science is everywhere. From the medicines in our cupboards to the laptop on which this is being written, it is scientific research that drives society forwards. We pay for it with our taxes and it is the gateway for our tomorrows, or at least so we are told. Yet we also rely on science in another way, on a much more fundamental level: we trust...