Most research spending is wasted on bad studies. These billionaires want to change that. - Vox

"Scientific research is often conducted in a highly unscientific manner. About $200 billion — or about 85 percent of global spending on research — is routinely wasted on poorly designed and redundant studies. As much as 30 percent of the most influential original medical research papers later turn out to be wrong or exaggerated. But finally, there's a massive push to fix these problems — and it's largely being financed by a billionaire couple from Houston. The Laura and John Arnold Foundation helped establish Metrics, a Stanford institute focused on 'meta research' — or research on research — to identify problems in the scientific process. They've backed large-scale "reproducibility projects" dedicated to rerunning hundreds of important experiments in everything from neuroscience to psychology, to figure out which ones are actually reliable. They've even funded crusading scientists who want to make the research process more transparent and hold their peers to higher standards. The Arnolds made a fortune (estimated at $4 billion) in finance in their 30s, and promptly started to give it all away, establishing their foundation in 2008. They aren't concerned with short-term rewards, like seeing their names on the side of buildings. Instead, they want to invest in solving long-term, systemic problems, including those in science. And they're filling a very important gap that's been left by traditional science-funding agencies, which often focus on innovation and breakthroughs. I spoke to Laura Arnold, a former corporate lawyer and businesswoman, about her vision and why she became interested in fixing science ..."