Stanford president’s downfall: a wider indictment of US research?

This is unusually ignorant. The issue is not "US research." The problem are international, and especially serious in medical research where Tessier-Lavigne's use of fraudulent images and failure to replace them after the error was identified is too common. Basken ignores that Tessier-Lavigne finally left his presidency, BUT he keeps his tenured position. That should not be permitted Basken cannot decide on his focus. Holden Thorp is an administrator not a researcher

Is having lots of co-authors, many of whom have only a passing acquaintance with the research, on papers also something of a problem?

For as long as universities focus only on the "volume counts and computerised metrics in tenure and promotion decisions", researchers will cut corners. Time to look at quality, not quantity of the research. But that is a long way off.

There's really something wrong with the scientific research 'system'. We've know these problems exist for a very long time (including those in the comments), globally, but nothing is ever done about it. The unhealthy competitions (which also give birth to free-riders) have made this space increasingly unpleasant to be in.

A low quality publication cited many times is still a low quality paper. Isn’t the best safeguard against this the process of peer review. What happened there? Metrics are a fine idea, as long the right thing is being measured. That is where to focus if metrics are to have any real value. Measure what matters, not what is easy to measure, because the latter is lazy and misleading.

“It’s based on quantitative factors and external forces like rankings and citations and all of this stuff, rather than a holistic evaluation of not only the research, but also the effect of that research on the world and on the people participating in conducting it.” Interesting statement coming from a publication (THES!) that pushes a very strong agenda in the international university ranking schemes ...