I suspect that you are correct but I have to wonder if there were a net negative how would we easily tell?
Obviously scientists are not constant in how many problems they cause, or else the answer would be either 'science could never get off the ground' (if they caused more problems than they solved) or 'they're not a net negative (since science is making progress and obviously made it off the ground). So presumably there's some sort of changing marginal returns; usually, marginal returns diminish.
What does it look like if marginal returns are positive? Well, you toss in 1 scientist and get n more units of scientific output. What does it look like if marginal r...
More evidence for this hypothesis:
Fanelli (2010). Do Pressures to Publish Increase Scientists' Bias? An Empirical Support from US States Data. PLoS ONE 5(4): e10271.