Wow, what fantastic insight and expression of pure truth. A couple of things that stood out:
"A guy with magic hands" - No one interfacing with science/technology, including admin personnel, should think such words are a fair way to express a scientist's/researcher's abilities. The connotation of such a statement is that it would be too difficult for others to do, and thus we (the community) would have to infer that reproducibility is limited.
The University of Rochester acted shamefully in their conduct and behavior. As an R1 institution, their only directive should be the pursuit of knowledge and truth. They should not engage in promoting, marketing, or "pumping up" research results. They need to simply act as a facility and conduit for making research possible.
"During the Dias affair, they ignored or attacked the critics. Most of all, they judged them. Judged their status. Judged their opinions. Judged their motivations." - This is why I think APS and other organizations need to issue a formal apology to Professor Jorge Hirsch. In many communications, both formal and informal, he was treated as an outsider with a grudge. As a theorist who was upset that his SC theory was rejected. But in reality, he was acting as a scientist/physicist who respected integrity and truth, despite hoping that Dias' results would turn out to be true!
"Managing - instead of doing - is now the route to the top" - My god, is this a problem today in both academics and technology companies. In my short professional career, I have seen countless occurrences where my manager completely lacks the technical skill to do the work they asked to lead or propose. Usually, upon request by their management to work on some technical project, they immediately pivot into how we can get the budget to hire a person to do this. The same thing happens in academia and national labs: Professors build grants and projects around cheap doctoral students and post-docs, but they couldn't even get the project off the ground if they had to step into the lab or write some simulation code. The managerial class, both in academia and industry, is lazy; they are not willing to do the grunt work alongside their less experienced colleagues but instead drive these said colleagues to the breaking point. And what is the outcome? You get celebrity PIs and Executives who are touted as brilliant and innovative, who are publicized as key in making our future. Sure, ideation is important—ideas are what seed innovation—but an idea is as good as the paper and pen that it is written with, not very useful if you can't actually build it!