I would say it's possible, but not in a way that's easily findable or fixable. How do you tell the difference between all the scientific research projects that haven't found anything useful yet? Which will go nowhere and waste time and money and which will lead to small but useful discoveries?
It's probably easier to usefully think about this in terms of specific fields rather than science in general. I could easily imagine that for example, there are way more people with anthropology degrees than useful anthropology going on.
Jonah Lehrer wrote about the (surprising?) power of publication bias.
http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all
Cosma Shalizi (I think) said something, or pointed to something, about the null model of science - what science would look like if there were no actual effects, just statistical anomalies that look good at first. I can't find the reference, though.