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‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

nature.com

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Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#31

Post by vouaobrasil »

j_maffe wrote: post #26
vouaobrasil wrote: post #10

It may be a person's instinct to immediately blame the researcher, and of course, I definitely think data fabrication is never justified. However, what is the societal problem here? It's the problem that in academia, there are such pressures to publish and be first nowadays that many people will do anything to get ahead. It doesn't help that social media and news sites have introduced a sort of gamification into it.…

I can see how that can be the case if it's for survival, but no one pressured this person to try to claim to find one of the most sought-after technologies out there. It also doesn't apply cause he voluntarily chose to go to a prestigious university where this kind of pressure exists. Competition can be healthy thing as long as it doesn't threaten the researcher's career, which clearly wasn't the case here. This guy…

Of course. I am not trying to remove the blame from him. On the other hand, we can also learn from these problems because they often point out nearby flaws in the general system that should be ameliorated. That was my main point.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#32

Post by j_maffe »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #31
j_maffe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see how that can be the case if it's for survival, but no one pressured this person to try to claim to find one of the most sought-after technologies out there. It also doesn't apply cause he voluntarily chose to go to a prestigious university where this kind of pressure exists. Competition can be healthy thing as long as it doesn't threaten the researcher's career, which clearly wasn't the case here. This guy…

Of course. I am not trying to remove the blame from him. On the other hand, we can also learn from these problems because they often point out nearby flaws in the general system that should be ameliorated. That was my main point.

I agree! I'm just saying that this case in particular does not really show the problem with pressure in Academia. If anything, it shows how lenient the peer-review process is.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#33

Post by j_maffe »

pvaldes wrote: post #24

Science currently looks like somebody going to fish, with the purpose of caught the best fish in the sea. So first they put the bait inside a plastic box, to weed out all the dumb fishes. Then they put the box inside another sealed wooden box, with a combination lockpad. Because only a really smart fish with skilled fin-paws should be able to figure out how to open also that box. For better measure, they finally put…

I think you're talking about Academia, not science. The scientific method is not at fault here.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#34

Post by troupe »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #10

It may be a person's instinct to immediately blame the researcher, and of course, I definitely think data fabrication is never justified. However, what is the societal problem here? It's the problem that in academia, there are such pressures to publish and be first nowadays that many people will do anything to get ahead. It doesn't help that social media and news sites have introduced a sort of gamification into it.…

> However, what is the societal problem here?

I would say yes. I think we need to place a lot more value in publishing research that isn't surprising. Research that simply replicates (or fails to replicate) other research should be just as valuable to one's career as finding something unexpected.

I scientist that has replicated a bunch of studies and identified several that they couldn't replicate is doing something very very valuable for the human race and we (universities, grants, etc.) need to recognize that.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#35

Post by andrewflnr »

pvaldes wrote: post #24

Science currently looks like somebody going to fish, with the purpose of caught the best fish in the sea. So first they put the bait inside a plastic box, to weed out all the dumb fishes. Then they put the box inside another sealed wooden box, with a combination lockpad. Because only a really smart fish with skilled fin-paws should be able to figure out how to open also that box. For better measure, they finally put…

Tl;dr: not allowing data fabrication is some kind of lofty, unreasonable standard that doesn't allow science to be published.

Please.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#36

Post by SkyBelow »

constantcrying wrote: post #18
vouaobrasil wrote: post #10

It may be a person's instinct to immediately blame the researcher, and of course, I definitely think data fabrication is never justified. However, what is the societal problem here? It's the problem that in academia, there are such pressures to publish and be first nowadays that many people will do anything to get ahead. It doesn't help that social media and news sites have introduced a sort of gamification into it.…

>It's the problem that in academia, there are such pressures to publish and be first nowadays that many people will do anything to get ahead. If you can not do honest work in academia you should leave and go work somewhere else. Fraud is not the correct reaction to the problems of academia, as it actively hurts it even more. Nobody is forced to do academic research for a living, especially if you have a degree in phy…

If you asked your CISO about securing your system against hackers and their response was "If they can't do honest pen testing, they should leave IT and go work somewhere else." what would your feelings be? OP wasn't trying to justify bad actors, but explain how the system is selecting for them, and we have to accept that our system is running in a world where there will always be back actors present. Systems must be built to be resistant to them.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#37

Post by vouaobrasil »

j_maffe wrote: post #32
vouaobrasil wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. I am not trying to remove the blame from him. On the other hand, we can also learn from these problems because they often point out nearby flaws in the general system that should be ameliorated. That was my main point.

I agree! I'm just saying that this case in particular does not really show the problem with pressure in Academia. If anything, it shows how lenient the peer-review process is.

Yeah that's true, that's something to think about. The peer-review process is indeed lame and weak.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#38

Post by dotnet00 »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #15
vouaobrasil wrote: post #10

It may be a person's instinct to immediately blame the researcher, and of course, I definitely think data fabrication is never justified. However, what is the societal problem here? It's the problem that in academia, there are such pressures to publish and be first nowadays that many people will do anything to get ahead. It doesn't help that social media and news sites have introduced a sort of gamification into it.…

The president of Stanford was caught pressuring his team to fabricate data for years, so this is likely pervasive everywhere in academia nevermind much higher pressure environments with lots of competition like elite institutions in India and China.

Especially because many of them have even less of a stigma against academic dishonesty than in many Western systems.

Edit: not to suggest that is anything inherent about people from those cultures.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#39

Post by gilmore606 »

andrewflnr wrote: post #35
pvaldes wrote: post #24

Science currently looks like somebody going to fish, with the purpose of caught the best fish in the sea. So first they put the bait inside a plastic box, to weed out all the dumb fishes. Then they put the box inside another sealed wooden box, with a combination lockpad. Because only a really smart fish with skilled fin-paws should be able to figure out how to open also that box. For better measure, they finally put…

Tl;dr: not allowing data fabrication is some kind of lofty, unreasonable standard that doesn't allow science to be published. Please.

That's not what he means, he's saying the pressure to constantly publish original research (the more original the better!) creates these incentives to become a rat, that is, to cheat.

Re: ‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction for controversial physicist

#40

Post by [deleted] »

troupe wrote: post #34
vouaobrasil wrote: post #10

It may be a person's instinct to immediately blame the researcher, and of course, I definitely think data fabrication is never justified. However, what is the societal problem here? It's the problem that in academia, there are such pressures to publish and be first nowadays that many people will do anything to get ahead. It doesn't help that social media and news sites have introduced a sort of gamification into it.…

> However, what is the societal problem here? I would say yes. I think we need to place a lot more value in publishing research that isn't surprising. Research that simply replicates (or fails to replicate) other research should be just as valuable to one's career as finding something unexpected. I scientist that has replicated a bunch of studies and identified several that they couldn't replicate is doing something…

[deleted]
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