I like the weak-link/strong-link distinction, but you need to be careful what problem exactly you are talking about. "Science" is not a problem. "How to distribute funding to scientists" is a problem. And here the weakest links actually matter, because you only have a finite amount of funding, and you don't want to waste it on the weak scientists, so you have more for strong scientists.<p>Another way of phrasing that problem is, "what actually is strong science, and what is weak science"? Over a few decades, that question usually plays out correctly, but even a few years is often not enough to tell, even for specialists, especially for truly new and original science. As an example, right now, would you say abstraction logic [1] is strong or weak science?<p>And of course, venture capital funding is also not a strong-link problem. You can waste money on <i>some</i> weak startups that you thought were actually strong, but do that too much, and your fund goes under.<p>[1] <a href="http://abstractionlogic.com" rel="nofollow">http://abstractionlogic.com</a>