The title of this post is the last phrase in the recent article published on Nature just a few days ago https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03572-7
The authorship of the phrase belongs to a Professor of Zurich University and concerns the fact that lottery grants can bring some humility to academia that is addicted to hubris.
“If you know you have got a grant…which
is selected partly randomly then you will know very well you are not the king
of the Universe, which makes you more humble…This is exactly what we need in
science.”
The article also mentions that the "Swiss National Science Foundation" is the latest funder to experiment with random selection.
P.S - In March of 2018 i suggested that even the selection of professors should be done using a three-step lottery:
"External experts select 4 candidates of the initial pool, the internal committee rejects 2 and then the lottery decides the winner between the remaining two candidates !"https://forum.bolseiros.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7853&p=40794&hilit=lottery#p40794
