Nairobi, March 7 -- In the 1800s, British colonists in India set about trying to reduce the cobra population, which was making life and trade very difficult in Delhi. They began to pay a bounty for dead cobras. The strategy very quickly resulted in the widespread breeding of cobras for cash.

This danger of unintended consequences is sometimes referred to as the "cobra effect". It can also be well summed up by Goodhardt's Law, named after British economist Charles Goodhart. He stated that, when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

The cobra effect has taken root in the world of research. The "publish or perish" culture, which values publications and citations above all, has resulted in its own myriad of "cobra bree...