La ricerca irrilevante è inutile e spesso dannosa

In the first issue of the Italian Journal of Psychology/Giornale Italiano di Psicologia, Minguzzi (1974) urged a discussion on irrelevant research in psychology motivating several colleagues to present their view. On the 50th anniversary of the Journal that hosted the discussion, it might be interesting to bring up Minguzzi’s invitation by checking for possible changes on the issue. I argue that if there have been changes, they are for the worst. I argue that four factors are responsible for such state of affaire: changes in the faculty member, being asked for new functions, roles, and workload; the large increase in the number of journals with very different publication policy; the decreasing availability of reviewers for peer-reviewing; the prevailing idea that scientific merit is indexed by a high number of publications.