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I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

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Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#71

Post by dnautics »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #70
dnautics wrote: post #31

In graduate school, in my lab there was a grad student who was kind of an unlikely "professor's pet". He was tall and had surfer's long hair with a bit of a hippie aesthetic. Anyways, he was also really completely clueless about how to do science correctly, but also, I guess, really good about playing politics (there was a time when he asked me to put some bacterial plasmid DNA on my mammalian cells. I told him "it d…

> In graduate school, in my lab there was a grad student who was kind of an unlikely "professor's pet". He was tall and had surfer's long hair with a bit of a hippie aesthetic. Anyways, he was also really completely clueless about how to do science correctly, but also, I guess, really good about playing politics (there was a time when he asked me to put some bacterial plasmid DNA on my mammalian cells. I told him "it…

I would say he is more of an erlich bachman than a bigetti.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#72

Post by raverbashing »

jojobas wrote: post #4

The model of science that worked from Newton to Landau seems to be falling apart in today's scale. There are millions of people whose livelihood depends on publishing, so they will publish anything they'll get away with. The amount of noise is beyond any researcher's ability to pick through. True incremental improvements in all areas are drowned in a steady flow of bad research. Top tier institutions seem to survive…

I agree (though we're probably looking back with rose-tinted glasses and with all the BS that went at that time filtered through time)

There's an over-reliance on p-values and publishing results and "peer-review" that can get pedantic, gate-keeping or useless real quickly.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#73

Post by rurban »

You are not fighting science, you are fighting politics. China obviously wants to forbid violent movies and games for minors, so they come up with these fantasy studies.

Very similar phenomenons also just happened in the west, where news and politics wanted to suppress critical scientists. News was stronger.

You also have to fight corruption all the time. Paid studies are constantly published to support some companies goals, with much better tricks and not so obvious flaws. Best is just to study the background of the authors and only accept independent research.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#74

Post by Melting_Harps »

dnautics wrote: post #71
Melting_Harps wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In graduate school, in my lab there was a grad student who was kind of an unlikely "professor's pet". He was tall and had surfer's long hair with a bit of a hippie aesthetic. Anyways, he was also really completely clueless about how to do science correctly, but also, I guess, really good about playing politics (there was a time when he asked me to put some bacterial plasmid DNA on my mammalian cells. I told him "it…

I would say he is more of an erlich bachman than a bigetti.

The guy teaches at UW now, it's not Stanford but its definitely Big Head's plot.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#75

Post by idoubtit »

raister wrote: post #34

What about Editor's ethics or lack thereof? I got accepted in a Chinese-oriented journal (i.e. most of the Editorial Board were Chinese) - I am not just 'saying' this, I'm saying because the OP mentioned "it's a Chinese thing" over results and datasets, whatever, I digress. On the last revision round, the Editor told me that I was lacking some references, which he promptly send me. Turned out that 6 out 6 of his 'rec…

I don't think this is related to the country of the editor. The lack of ethics is more preponderant in low-quality reviews (many junk reviews are Asian) and in some domains (more in medical reviews than mathematics).

Here is an example that even the highest profile journal can lack ethics: circa 2005, Nature published a paper comparing a selection of scientific articles from Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. The editorial board of Nature selected the articles and sent them to reviewers. They only publishes metrics and a few quotes of their data (the list of selected articles and the reviews). The results were surprising and made a lot of buzz. But Britannica noted that one of these quotes was a sentence that was not it their encyclopedia. Nature had to admit that they selected some Wikipedia articles, and when they could not find the equivalent Britannica article, they sometimes built it by mixing articles and adding a few sentences of their own. Obviously, the process were totally biased, from the selection to the publication.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#76

Post by panabee »

dnautics wrote: post #40
mpoteat wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wanted to say that this resonated with me, as a former grad student involved in protein research who is now doing dev work. I hope you're doing well these days!

I'm doing pretty good, thank you! I enjoy coding, I've always been a better coder than a biochemist (likely on account of started coding at age 5, started biochemistry at age 19). I'm still doing garage science here and there, and being a programmer affords me the capability to both afford that and have some time to do it.

i have been thinking a lot about this problem. society has innumerable unsolved problems in healthcare, and many talented people who would like to contribute but cannot.

in software, the open-source model allows people to advance critical initiatives without quitting their day jobs or making onerous commitments.

how can we achieve the same in healthcare, that is let outsiders contribute and advance the state of the art?

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#77

Post by m12k »

Johnny555 wrote: post #16

The article mentions Brandolini’s Law: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.” It's the first time I've heard it, but it's a very appropriate observation in today's world where misinformation travels faster and wider than correct information. If you're just making stuff up, it's much faster than looking up sources.

You're absolutely right - the big question of the day is not just "how do we counter disinformation?" but "how do we counter it at scale?" The bad-faith actors of the world have realized how incredibly cost effective disinformation is in an online world that can massively amplify messages, and which algorithmically selects for divisiveness and "engagement" rather than factually and utility. We need a CAPTCHA for truth - but I'm not sure such a thing is even possible without AGI. So what does that leave us with - making algorithmic message amplification illegal? Putting that genie back in the bottle isn't going to be easy, so we'd need to be damn sure it's the right thing to do, to ever drum up enough support to get legislation like that passed.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#78

Post by gspr »

qqj wrote: post #38
dnautics wrote: post #31

In graduate school, in my lab there was a grad student who was kind of an unlikely "professor's pet". He was tall and had surfer's long hair with a bit of a hippie aesthetic. Anyways, he was also really completely clueless about how to do science correctly, but also, I guess, really good about playing politics (there was a time when he asked me to put some bacterial plasmid DNA on my mammalian cells. I told him "it d…

this is incredible. And I thought I had it bad with politics in tech companies... this is some next level not giving a fuck right there - people who cheat like that should be punished severely, and work as supermarket cashiers, not become fricking professors. Unfortunately, I too, were I in your shoes, wouldn't pursue it much further past filing a formal complaint or two: the game is asymmetrical, it's much harder to…

Just be aware that it's not always like this, and that some fields are less prone to it than others.

In my 8 years in research mathematics, I didn't see a single case that would come close to this horror show (not that mathematics is free of unethical behavior, of course). Collaborating with biologists, however, I got exposed to a world far more backstabby than I've since experienced in the corporate world.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#79

Post by jacquesm »

lrem wrote: post #69
raister wrote: post #34

What about Editor's ethics or lack thereof? I got accepted in a Chinese-oriented journal (i.e. most of the Editorial Board were Chinese) - I am not just 'saying' this, I'm saying because the OP mentioned "it's a Chinese thing" over results and datasets, whatever, I digress. On the last revision round, the Editor told me that I was lacking some references, which he promptly send me. Turned out that 6 out 6 of his 'rec…

Oh, this is not a China thing. I've had a paper have a bunch of reviewers suggest a bunch of references each. Every bunch had every paper share at least one author. Every bunch was pairwise disjoint in the author sets. Draw your own conclusions. Edit: just to be clear: I didn't at the time read that as "submission tax". More of, trying to be helpful and using things they personally were familiar with. Most, if not al…

More and more evidence that the magazine based publication route is a net negative to science.

Re: I tried to report scientific misconduct. How did it go?

#80

Post by pototo666 »

Hell. This is disgusting.

I used to think of joining academic world, my interests was in Political Science. But I had many doubts over the academic mechanics in China, many bad news spreaded.(Besides I doubt my passion and intelligence). So I choose to join business world, then startup world.

Still, reading such news disgutsts me. There should not be such thing as Fake it until you make it in academics.

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