One in seven scientists say colleagues fake data!

www.timesonline.co.uk...

wattsupwiththat.com... (Contributed by Dogdish )

One in seven scientists says that they are aware of colleagues having seriously breached acceptable conduct by inventing results. And around 46 per cent say that they have observed fellow scientists engage in “questionable practices”, such as presenting data selectively or changing the conclusions of a study in response to pressure from a funding source.

It seems like the scientific world is not as perfect as we think it is. Either way I still think this is a great article to read. I still think is not true for every scientist, but you can’t rule them all out. There are always crooks in every field of research.

[edit on 25-4-2010 by Maddogkull]

Scientists are just guessing about things like you and i. The best guessers like anything get to the top.

Does teh data have to be true, or the theory.

The big bang theory is rubbish i reckon, but others say it is not so, so who is right. I say big bang theory was just made up from male ejaculation, and science just took that idea and went with it.

See guessing.

How it works is that they find good guessers, and they go with there theories, thats all science is.

So i will say again.

How science works is that they find good guessers and thats how they come to rely on a persons theories. It is just guessing, with some whispers in the night.

reply to post by Maddogkull


My personal fave -- dropping data points based on a gut feeling. That's SCIENCE!

Misconduct was divided into two categories: fabrication, the actual invention of data; and lesser breaches that went under the heading “questionable practices”. These included dropping data points based on a “gut feeling” and failing to publish data that contradict one’s previous research.

this goes deeper than u think
forensic techs fake crime lab data
as well. So it's an across the board
phenom

Like this?

Scientist admits...

Flagged, so more will be able to enjoy this thread.

Thanks man, ill put it in my post, so people can check that out also

Unfortunately people on this site will see this as support for their crazy theories and even established scientific theories will be shot down when they prove these theories wrong.

There is evidence that some scientists do fake data. But a lot are very trustworthy. Hopefully they won’t take into account all scientists are crooks. That is not the message me or the article is trying to portray.

There is no excusing faking scientific data. But just to be sure lest everyone who checks this thread call all scientists fakers and deceivers it should be noted... The article says that 1 in 7 scientists believe other scientists manipulate data. It DOES NOT say that 1 in 7 scientists fake data.

reply to post by andy1033


Scientists are not "guessers". This is your way of making your understanding of scientific material equal to those who have spent years studying it. Sounds like jelousy.

It would make total sense that scientists would not bite the hand that feeds. When scientists get funding, they usually are instructed to come to the conclusions of what the "funders" wished from the analysis.

If you were a scientist and you got 10 million in funding to help prove cancer is caused by smoking...... would your final results be tilted toward genetics? Or would your results be tilted toward smoking cigarettes like your funders requested?

Even well-intentioned scientists are believed to have faked or at least skewed data by not presnting those data which don't support their hypothesis.

One such scientist believed to have "faked" data is Gregor Mendel, often considered the "father of modern genetics":

www.newworldencyclopedia.org...

Mendel's experimental results have been the object of considerable dispute. A renowned statistician, R. A. Fisher analyzed the results of the F1 (first filial) ratio and found them to be implausibly close to the exact ratio of 3 to 1. In 1936, Fisher (1990) published an analysis that concluded "the data of most, if not all, of the experiments have been falsified so as to agree closely with Mendel's expectations," and in private, he referred to this discovery of "faked" data as "abdominable" and a "shocking experience" (Box 1978). The subject remains controversial today. Only a few would accuse Mendel of scientific malpractice or call it a scientific fraud—reproduction of his experiments has demonstrated the accuracy of his laws. However, the results have continued to be a mystery for many, though it is often cited as an example of confirmation bias, and he is generally suspected of having "smoothed" his data to some degree (not knowing about the importance of blind classification).

The fact that Mendel's reported results concentrate on the few traits in peas that are determined by a single gene has also suggested that he may have censored his results, otherwise he likely would have stumbled across genetic linkage, either in peas or in the other species he studied. Genetic linkage occurs when particular alleles (different DNA codings of the same gene) are inherited together. Because chromosomes are sorted randomly during meiosis, generally an allele can be passed on and considered independent of those alleles for other genes. However, alleles that are on the same chromosome are more likely to be inherited together, and are said to be linked.

These facts remain a paradox, as Mendel has a reputation as someone of great integrity with a passion for science, as well as intellectually gifted with strong powers of observation.

I think the evidence suggests his data probably is a little "too perfect" to be 100% real. Yet he is said to have "a reputation as someone of great integrity with a passion for science" so if someone with great integrity can do it, I don't think anyone is immune.

However, that's one reason why scientists like to independently replicate each others experiments and observations. This is one way of potentially finding out who's faking and who isn't.

Common knowledge.

Eliminating this is part of the peer review process, although that can become corrupt occasionally. That's why it is important to distinguish between scientific facts, which can be tested and verified by anyone (for example, stoichiometry), and scientific theories (for example, electric universe). I've seen plenty of papers that are clearly BS and that's one of the reasons they've been shot down by other scientists, and that's why it's important to be skeptical of everything.

[edit on 26/4/2010 by C0bzz]

Originally posted by C0bzz
Eliminating this is part of the peer review process, although that can become corrupt occasionally.

Sure, but a scientist better be careful what he peer reviews and what he says in the review. To go against the grain of accepted theory is a worse sin than faking the data in the science world.

Originally posted by Maddogkull
There is evidence that some scientists do fake data. But a lot are very trustworthy. Hopefully they won’t take into account all scientists are crooks. That is not the message me or the article is trying to portray.

This is true but you know people like to place stigma's on things based on a few bad apples. Hopefully this one doesn't stick and the bad apples can be weeded out.

Originally posted by Threadfall
There is no excusing faking scientific data. But just to be sure lest everyone who checks this thread call all scientists fakers and deceivers it should be noted... The article says that 1 in 7 scientists believe other scientists manipulate data. It DOES NOT say that 1 in 7 scientists fake data.

Aw man...
The next time I'm getting pummeled in a debate, or a hypothesis gets shredded in peer review, I'm directing them to this thread anyway...
It's all about winning.

...and 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed told the fifth to shut the hell up.

[edit on 26-4-2010 by lernmore]

When Federal Money (the result of thankless toil by working people) are at stake, the Welfare Scientist is just as greedy as the Welfare Banker or the Welfare Mother.

They will lie to steal from you, the citizen, to perpetuate their fancy, scientist lifestyle. Once they discover they can steal money, why should they work for it. They are entitled to it after all! They are men of science, of truth, of beauty!

How many "New Findings" do we hear about each day that are just re-hashes of crap we already knew?

Hell, some people spend their entire lives as Grant Writers. A whole class of people whose sole purpose is to get money from the Federal Government for lazy scientists and researchers unable to compete in the real world. It is a scam and results in crap like The Religion of Global Warming.


[edit on 26-4-2010 by mike_trivisonno]

Originally posted by Maddogkull
One in seven scientists says that they are aware of colleagues having seriously breached acceptable conduct by inventing results.

(original article)
www.plosone.org...

This is a meta-research by a librarian.

The author is just reviewing what OTHER researchers have published. Questions aren't standardized in the research they reviewed (so one group might be asked "have you ever cheated" and the other asked "have you ever dropped a result from your report that just was way out of line" -- that's two different questions with two different answers (the second one may not reflect cheating, but an analysis done poorly by the lab))

The author of the paper admits to having arbitrary standards:

The distinction made in this review between “fabrication, falsification and alteration” of results and QRP is somewhat arbitrary.

In the final section, she does (like any good student) report that there are social and cultural problems with a metasearch and that the probable true rate of cheating is equal to the number of papers withdrawn because the scientist were caught cheating/faking by the peer review process -- 2%.

I suspect the percentage of people cheating on taxes is far higher than the number of scientists cheating at research.



(final comment -- this is a very good and thorough meta-review methodology and the database searches are really quite good.)

Originally posted by wiredamerican
It would make total sense that scientists would not bite the hand that feeds. When scientists get funding, they usually are instructed to come to the conclusions of what the "funders" wished from the analysis.

If you were a scientist and you got 10 million in funding to help prove cancer is caused by smoking...... would your final results be tilted toward genetics? Or would your results be tilted toward smoking cigarettes like your funders requested?

Actually, you HAVE to report the sources of your funding when you do the research. That's part of the "peer review" publication process. There's a number of known papers where the findings reflect what the funder wanted (you mentioned cigarettes, but there's also the recent flap over autism and vaccines where the researcher published what the funder wanted: vaccines cause autism.) The bias is known, and the results are not considered as accurate as those done by other methods.

However, in releasing the results to the public, the funders don't always admit this bias... and newspaper reporters don't pick up on this.

reply to post by Maddogkull


Is it not possible that the scientists saying this are simply jelous of their colleagues? If someone provides data that another doesn't like then accusing them of misconduct is a common reaction. Also the study, which was anonymous notes that only 2% of scientists interviewed admitted to fudging results. This is a rather incredible difference when we again consider this was an anonymous poll.

Consider for example a graph relating a trend of population within rabbits. A trend is commonly shown using a "best fit" line on a graph. This is common practice and is well respected as a technique as it has been shown to be accurate. Anomalous years where the population is massively higher or lower may simply be ignored. Now one scientist would submit this quite honestly and a colleague may think it's being dishonest.

I think this study is flawed.

As an aside i think it's more interesting how quickly this thread was flagged up the list. I think society is distrusting scientists more and more even though it is science which has brought us all of the advances we enjoy today.

[edit on 26-4-2010 by ImaginaryReality1984]