Paul Smaldino

Paul Smaldino is an assistant professor of cognitive and information sciences at the University of California, Merced, where he studies how psychological and behavioral traits emerge and evolve in response to social, cultural, and ecological pressures, as well as how those pressures can themselves evolve. I also have broad interests related to cultural evolution, cooperation, and complex adaptive systems. Much of his work involves building mathematical models and computer simulations to generate and test hypotheses.

Existing Career Incentives Are Often Bad for Science

A culture of bad science can evolve as a result of institutional incentives that prioritize simple quantitative metrics as measures of success, argues Paul Smaldino. But, he adds, not all is lost as new initiatives such as open data and replication are making a positive difference.

7 years ago
2015