Chip manufacturers like Intel and IBM have regularly made good on promises of exponential progress for at least a half century. Comparing them to press release-pushing biomedical researchers is tantamount to a slur.
> Comparing them [chip manufacturers] to press release-pushing biomedical researchers is tantamount to a slur.
No, it isn't. Slower progress in biomedical research isn't a result of biomedical researchers exhibiting any of the qualities whose unwarranted attribution normally constitutes slur. It is the result of much greater complexity, lower predictability, higher safety requirements and weaker human understanding of biological systems compared to semiconductors.
If third parties ("PR") hijack the truth, it is up to the researcher publicly to denounce them.
If, as I suspect, such denunciation is bad for a researcher's funding, then we have a problem in research, if indeed, in such circumstances, it can even be called research (as opposed to, say, "marketing").
Clearly biotech is a younger field than semiconductors, and it should be given a wide berth to make mistakes without prejudice, but that does not exonerate it from explicitly communicating the expected uncertainty of its results.
Most of the blame lies with the scientific press, but the researchers don't seem to mind it all that much either. Misleading or overly-optimistic press releases written by university personal are also the source of much of it.
Whatever it takes to get those sweet, sweet grant dollars