Not for anyone outside of the EU, and not in short-term. However, I believe that it is an alarming tendency that can cause a lot of damage over a sufficiently long time period.
It's still a problem for us in the U.S, because there are always politicians in the U.S. that look at dumb things being done in Europe and say, "We should be doing that, too.", and voters who will vote for them.
In the long term, though, it could cause noticible implosion of related industries. I'm kinda imagining that this kind of regulation is going to be so clearly harmful that its removed.
It looks like the group described was fairly exclusive: members were voted in. That probably contributed a lot to making sure that the community was reflective of the best qualities of the members.
> I long for the day when people can do good science just for the sake of good science, and not have to spin every single paper as being the start of some new revolution that never seems to come.
I absolutely agree - but I think that's only going to happen when people's livlihoods are not dependent on the immediate value of their research.
J. J. Thompson (who discovered the electron) said this about 100 years ago:
If you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted.
In promising work of the highest class, however, results do no come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would justify his salary.
The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it.
