More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record Government funding of science has destroyed "peer review" which is now just rubber-stamping "pal review." This is a major problem in climate, environmental and public health research. Most journals are really a joke, publishing incredible amounts of trash and fraud. Papers are pubbed after bogus peer review for the purpose of advancing the government funding agency's agenda. The researchers and reviewers are usually-to-always cronies.

Nowhere in human history science consumed so many resources in both absolute, both relative numbers. Despite of this, Fleming's discovery of penicillin couldn't get published today, for example. That's a huge problem. A fish rots from the head down - and science is supposed to be head of innovation: it avoids utilitarian research at all cost - and this cost is not small. See also:

• How big is science's fake-paper problem? , Alarming: Fraud spreads in Science: ...as time went on, special issues  became basically junkyards of scam papers that   were waved through by those guest editors which  were not accountable to anyone or anything. The journals didn’t do much about it,  because you see they sell subscriptions   to their content, regardless of what  that content is. So researchers were  constantly getting spammed with calls  to contribute to those special issues..
• Scientists seen as competent but not trusted by Americans Their priority is apparently trivial or abstract research without practical usage or even bringing public risks and dystopia - not the findings which would help people, who are actually paying their fun.
• Eclipse of (ideological) reasoning: Why do people disbelieve scientists?
• We Have Ways To Stop Rogue Scientists. We Don’t Have the Ways To Make Them Work. The same applies to research of findings which scientists don't like like overunity, antigravity, cold fusion, room temperature superconductivity etc...
• Freedom and responsibility of science: Academia Growing Increasingly Authoritarian
• Paywalls block scientific progress. Research should be open to everyone.: Accessing scientific research today is an absurd and costly business for the taxpayer - much to the profit of publishers.
• Researchers must be accountable to the public that provide their funding.
• Why We Have So Much "Duh" Science: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 ..