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Cracking down on research fraud

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Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#181

Post by fock »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #30

I've read that before 2003, the whole of humanity has published as many scientific papers as from 2003 to 2016. So what happened around 2000? Who has turned the scientific mission into a blind competition for superficial metrics? So many people in science I meet (apart from the few who benefited from this system, and therefore were selected by it) are frustrated by publishing for the sake of publishing (not science)…

0) the internet has made citing (and the expectations on knowing everything) so much easier. 1) China entered the game en force 2) everyone else has to step up 3) companies entered the market 4) in some areas, an arxiv (which is good) full of errors/hand-waving gets some 100 citations. Peer-reviewed work not.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#182

Post by TrackerFF »

Something1234 wrote: post #8
logicslave wrote: post #6

The root of the problem is that we allow people with high esteemed credentials to run society. They jumped through a hoop. "You got straight As at 14 - 18 years old and got into an ivy league school as a result? Here run this venture fund." "You got a PhD in Economics with a good publication by P-hacking your secret data? Here take a run at the FED with power over the US Economy. Your Phd shows that you are the man f…

Thanks for pointing out the problem with credentials. Name a better indicator then for being competent.

For most, credentialism works fine in academia.

The problem is that you're incentivized to cheat, because it's either that or your career.

Academia suffers from incredible power asymmetry, and an obsession with prestige. It's shit culture that rots from the head and down.

Of course, the vast majority of research groups are not like that - but it seems to be a problem which has always been there, but just been swept under the rug.

Again, it's difficult to find informants. Groups are small, and most advisors have very few people under their wing. It is probably very easy to identify and black-ball whistleblowers. It gets more difficult, the more you're invested in your work/degree.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#183

Post by roel_v »

adminprof wrote: post #143
martincmartin wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest as an alternative?

This entire thread is really frustrating for me to read. A lot of these ideas are one-liners from people who have had very little experience with different parts of academia, except maybe being a student. Every single idea here are debated to death by academics already (not just university academics, but funding agencies, academic societies, award panels, journal editors and conference organizers), with changes happe…

Thank you for writing this. Your examples were lethargic. I know I should stay away from the 'academia is broken duh duh' threads here but I get sucked into them anyway. They're always full of armchair experts who don't know anything about universities or research except from being students or at best junior researchers and then think this makes them experts on the matter.

But the article itself had that same vibe for me, especially with how cock sure it is that the 'questionable research practices' are 'fraud'. I mean, come on - someone making up the responses of a 500 people questionnaire; yes that I could call 'fraud'. But not being included as an author on a paper, or being included when you didn't contribute that much? I've been in both situations and in some cases, I was completely fine with it; in others I was a bit miffed (mostly because of the same interpersonal frictions that happen everywhere where people work together) - but in none of those I would call it anywhere near 'fraud' or even 'dishonest'. Yes, there exist people who pay 1 or 2 people to write papers for them and then publish those papers with themselves as the only author. Again, that I would call 'fraud'. But the 99.9% of other cases - not even close. Just like because there is one billionaire underage sex trafficer, doesn't mean all of them are and that 'the system' is 'broken'.

And this is how I, again, got sucked into a completely non-productive 'discussion' that is so far removed from reality so as to be completely irrelevant anyway...

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#185

Post by hhas01 »

gwerbret wrote: post #77

These issues of research fraud come up often, but the root of the problem is a bit more subtle. In North America at least, biomedical research labs operate largely as fiefdoms of the individual principal investigators (PIs). The actual research work falls almost entirely on the backs of grad students and postdoctoral fellows. The grad students need to generate "good" data in order to graduate, the postdocs need the s…

Rest assured it’s not just North America.

https://forbetterscience.com/2020/03/26/chloroquine-genius-d...

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#186

Post by cryptica »

The monetary system is founded on fraud. So it's not surprising to see that the system as a whole is tolerant of all other kinds of fraud. Those who have the power to fix it have no moral grounds to do so without turning into hypocrites. Nobody wants to be a hypocrite. At least if you keep your mouth shut, you can feel better about yourself; you're just doing what everyone else is doing.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#187

Post by Gatsky »

aaron695 wrote: post #169
Gatsky wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard everything he said. I'm well aware of the concept. Again, everyone knows that all mice come from the same place (because it's written in the papers), and that they are very different to wild mice or mice from elsewhere. I also didn't say we don't have proof that it is a problem. Again, all models are imperfect, but some are useful. I am telling you what I see as the significance of Weinstein's findings as…

You are still saying what Weinstein said you would say. Weinstein has laid out a case. It theoretically makes sense. It is quantifiable. He makes a good argument it is massively significant. If confirmed it is fixable. If confirmed it means things in other fields. This is in pop culture, anyone researching with mice should have heard of it, so the fact no one can whip out an article disputing it says a lot. Science i…

I don’t think you are listening to me. I am not disputing his point. I think it could well be valid and is certainly plausible. The idea is pretty clever. Attempts should be made to understand it more and minimise the effect. Great, add it to the list of problems with mouse models. It certainly isn’t at the top.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#188

Post by woofie11 »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #133
wjn0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Public access to research results, methods, and data, with some exceptions (such as PII) You mentioned PII, so I'm assuming some familiarity with the health field. I'm curious about your thoughts on the position that one should not be required to immediately publicize their data, because there needs to be an expectation that a researcher can translate the capital (both time and money) they expend to acquire quali…

At the very least it seems like it would be fraud not to include the original collector of the data as a co-author on the analysis paper.

I know at least one professor where one person generated the data. Another person cleaned the data. The professor got her faculty position by taking the cleaned data, running a regression on it, and publishing the first result. The original research team could have done the work in 15 minutes, but wanted to hold off on publication.

It got a ton of citations and press for her.

The research was at MIT. I won't mention where she's a professor, out of interests of privacy. I know several similar cases at MIT too.

But if it was fraud, what would one do about it? Screaming about this sort of thing kills everyone's careers, and embarrasses the institution the research was done at. It's no good for anyone involved. People move on. The whole system incentivizes this sort of fraud, and faculty positions are hypercompetitive, so people follow those incentive structures to be successful.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#189

Post by woofie11 »

gwerbret wrote: post #111
Gatsky wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One was a post-doctoral scientist, called X. The lab I was in was asked to take X on by the institute because they had a falling out with another lab, the details of which were not disclosed. A year later, after very poor productivity and various petty issues with other people in the lab, someone checked X's data collection where the original data was available on the instrtument, and found that it was all made up. S…

I agree completely that some people fit that bill; I'd argue however that even for them, the skewed incentives of research success certainly help support that particular approach to fraud. My premise was that most of the people committing research fraud are probably not sociopaths.

The bigger problem is that research fraud leads to research impact which leads to academic hiring.

I think most graduate students come in with pretty good integrity. By the time people are promoted for tenure, you've had multiple filters for sociopathic behavior.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#190

Post by woofie11 »

Gatsky wrote: post #109
caterama wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give more details on other causes of research fraud you've seen?

One was a post-doctoral scientist, called X. The lab I was in was asked to take X on by the institute because they had a falling out with another lab, the details of which were not disclosed. A year later, after very poor productivity and various petty issues with other people in the lab, someone checked X's data collection where the original data was available on the instrtument, and found that it was all made up. S…

That's the damnable thing. The result in each case is an NDA. These things never go public. It's in no one's interest.

MIT is choked full with people who've signed these sorts of NDAs. You shall not talk about wide-spread research fabrication. You shall not talk about the professors who partied on Epstein's island (except for the few honest ones who came forward; they're ostracized). You shall not talk about corrupt conflicts-of-interest. And so on.

I've heard similar things about Stanford and a few other elite schools, but I have no first-hand knowledge there.

Why is this even allowed?

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