I've recently started to do research work at my medical school. It's mostly done by statistical analysis of patient charts, trying to find a trend between poorly controlled diabetes and the likelihood of having a certain type of heart attacks. The literature on this issue heavily contradicts itself, and most of it is riddled with problems like poor sample sizes and errors in methodology. By the end of the summer I doubt I'll have accomplished anything more than contributing to this noise. I'm interested in a career in academics, and someday I hope to make real contributions to the scientific community. But right now I'm at the bottom of the totem poll and, unless I try to apply for some Ivy League residency, the quantity of my publications are far more important than their quality. Since we have a system that encourages this type of thinking, you end up with a large body of low quality science published in a large number of low quality journals.