Comment by runako

> Not just sort of expensive (though not very, compared with other budget items). But more importantly: inefficient (to put it nicely). And more importantly still: often (perhaps more often than not!) plain wrong. And that means, sadly: fairly/largely ineffective (degree depending on the domain)

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of "science." Science is not experiments and papers. Science is a set of methods by which we discover truth.

I will agree: if you knew in advance which experiments to do, or which needed fewer resources, you could make science more efficient. Pharma could save a ton of money by not testing all the stupid compounds that don't work. We could abandon safety protocols and simply not make mistakes that harm people. Rocket companies could simply start by designing the working rocket on the first try instead of making all the failures first. Physicists should just model reality accurately instead of spending money building giant particle accelerators to check how reality works. These are all good ideas, and I am sure there are many more!

In the Land of Theory, there are any number of ways to make science more efficient and always right. You can guarantee yourself a Nobel prize if you can demonstrate how to run real science in the the Land of Theory.