The IRB (institutional review board) is this weird bureaucracy, often staffed by helpful and well-meaning people but generally out of control, as it operates on an if-it’s-not-allowed-it’s-forbidden principle. As an example, Jonathan Falk points us to this Kafkaesque story from Scott Alexander, which ends up like this:

Faced with submitting twenty-seven new pieces of paperwork to correct our twenty-seven infractions, Dr. W and I [Alexander] gave up. We shredded the patient data and the Secret Code Log. We told all the newbies they could give up and go home. We submitted the Project Closure Form to the woman in the corner office (who as far as I know still hasn’t completed her Pre-Study Training). We told the IRB that they had won, fair and square; we surrendered unconditionally.

They didn’t seem the least bit surprised. . . .

I feel like some scientists do amazingly crappy studies that couldn’t possibly prove anything, but get away with it because they have a well-funded team of clerks and secretaries who handle the paperwork for them. And that I, who was trying to do everything right, got ground down with so many pointless security-theater-style regulations that I’m never going to be able to do the research I would need to show they’re wrong. . . .