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Fraud, so much fraud

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Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#131

Post by nextos »

testfoobar wrote: post #106
dekhn wrote: post #62

These sorts of articles raise so many thoughts and emotions in me. I was trained as a computational biologist with a little lab work and ran gels from time to time. Personally, I hated gels- they're finicky, messy, ugly, and don't really tell you very much. But molecular biology as a field runs on gels- it's the priimary source of results for almost everything in molbio. I have seen more talks and papers that rested…

Similar - when I was younger, I would never have suspected that a scientist was committing fraud. As I've gotten older, I understand that Charlie Munger's observation "“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.” is applicable everywhere - including science. Academic scientists' careers are driven by publishing, citations and impact. Arguably some have figured how to game the system to advance their caree…

Lots of people doing research find this depressing to the point of quitting. Many of my peers left research as they couldn't stomach all this nonsense. In experimental fields, the current academic system rewards dishonesty so much that ugly things have become really common.

In my relatively short career, I have been asked to manipulate results several times. I refused, but this took an immense toll, especially on two occasions. Some people working with me wanted to support me fighting dishonesty. But guess what, they all had families and careers and were ultimately not willing to do anything as this could jeopardize their position.

I've also witnessed first-hand how people that manage to publish well adopt monopolistic strategies, sabotaging interesting grant proposals from other groups or stalling their article submissions while they copy them. This is a problem that seldomly gets discussed. The current review system favors mono-cultures and winner-takes-it-all scenarios.

For these reasons, I think industrial labs will be doing much better. Incentives there are not that perverse.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#132

Post by jvanderbot »

momoschili wrote: post #63
vasco wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick up an old engineering book at some point, something from mid 1800's or early 1900's and you'll quickly realize that the trust people put on science isn't what it should be. The scientific method works over a long period of time, but to blindly trust a peer review study that just came out, any study, is almost as much faith as religion, specially if you're not a high level researcher in the same field and have sp…

Going to need some citations here since the texts that I'm familiar with from that time period are "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" by Maxwell (mid-late 1800s) and "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity" by E. T. Whittaker, neither of which mentions anything of the sort. I suspect you are choosing from texts that at the time likely would not have been considered academic or standard.

Your points of memory are not counterpoints. Those are the ones that lived - and are not indicative of the general quality of science during those times. Obvious survivor bias.

The fact that you can recall those reinforces the point that the value is determined by how long it is useful and remembered, not the fact that it was published.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#133

Post by yunwal »

eig wrote: post #85
ta8645 wrote: post #65

Everyone seems to acknowledge this is a problem, but refuse to believe it actually affects anything when it comes time to "trust the science". Yes, science is corrupted, but all the results can be trusted, and the correct answer is always reached in the end. So, is it really a problem? Or not?

A key skill for any scientist is to differentiate quality work and science that can be easily faked. The Alzheimer's and Parkinson's fields are too easy to fake, and too difficult to replicate. The new ideas are only ~20 years old. Big pharma companies are understandably wary of published papers. When people say "trust the science", they often refer to things like masks, and antibiotics, and vaccines. That science is…

> When people say "trust the science", they often refer to things like masks, and antibiotics, and vaccines. That science is hundreds of years old and have been replicated thousands of times.

When people say "trust the science" they're usually referring to fairly recent developments. Covid vaccines were in development and testing for just over 18 months before being mandated and were certainly not replicated on a large scale by disinterested 3rd parties before being mandated. The idea that we can have effective scientific policy without trust in scientific institutions is just... not accurate.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#135

Post by BobaFloutist »

Lionga wrote: post #78
dekhn wrote: post #62

These sorts of articles raise so many thoughts and emotions in me. I was trained as a computational biologist with a little lab work and ran gels from time to time. Personally, I hated gels- they're finicky, messy, ugly, and don't really tell you very much. But molecular biology as a field runs on gels- it's the priimary source of results for almost everything in molbio. I have seen more talks and papers that rested…

Don't hate the player hate the game. Governments made scientist only survive if they show results and specifically the results they want to see. Otherwise no anymore grants and you are done. Whether the results are fake or true does not matter "Science" nowadays is mostly BS, while the scientific method (hardly ever used in "science" nowadays) is still gold.

"Nobody is ever responsible for their own actions. Economics predicting the existence of bad actors makes them not actually bad."

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#136

Post by ksenzee »

pmarreck wrote: post #115
hacksoi wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people can get away with it, they will do it. Rules and punishments for breaking them exist for a reason.

My sole rational argument for Christianity is that it has made the societies that it is, or was, infused with, more honest than the ones that were not.

I’m not sure there are any rational arguments for Christianity. I say that as a practicing Christian. Either it meets a spiritual need in you, or it’s not very valuable. I imagine that belief in a God who punishes evildoers has kept some people honest throughout history, but the value of that is surely outweighed by the evil done in the name of that God.

I also don’t believe Christian societies are more honest than others. Every religion I know of teaches honesty, as does every non-religious ethical framework I can think of.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#138

Post by Lerc »

slashdave wrote: post #18
idunnoman1222 wrote: post #6

The amazing part about this to me is that the only reason the authors were caught is image manipulation. The fraud in numbers and text? Not so easy to uncover. Prediction: papers stop using pictures entirely

GenAI will make faking western blots fantastically easy

Eventually AI will also be able to reliably audit papers and report on fraud.

There may be newer AI methods of fraud, but it will only buy you time. As both progress, committing to record a fraud generated by technology will almost certainly be detected by a later technology.

I would guess that we're within 10 years of being able to automatically audit the majority of papers currently published. That thought must give the authors of fraudulent papers the heebee jeebies.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#139

Post by dghlsakjg »

janice1999 wrote: post #40
dghlsakjg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the same flavor of fraud as financial fraud. It is about personal gain, and avoiding loss. This kind of fraud happens because scientists are rewarded greatly for coming up with new, publishable, interesting results. They are punished severely for failing to do that. You could be the department's best professor in terms of teaching, but if you aren't publishing, your job is at risk at many universities. Scientis…

> If Shell's scientists publish a paper A lot of companies reward employees for publications. Mine certainly does. Also an oil company may not be such a great example since they directly and covertly rewarded scientists for publishing papers undermining climate change research.

Ok. Bad example using Shell, but the point is that Industry scientists do not have publication in journals as a primary incentive.

A scientist can work in industry research and NEVER publish, and still have a career where they make money, and don't worry about losing their job.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#140

Post by animal_spirits »

biorach wrote: post #76
tppiotrowski wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a period of time when science was advanced by the aristocrats who were self funded and self motivated. Once it became a distinguished profession the incentives changed. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"

> There was a period of time when science was advanced by the aristocrats who were self funded and self motivated. From a distance the practice of science in early modern and Enlightenment times might look like the disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. If you read the detailed history of the times you'll see that the reality was much more messy.

Do you have any examples you know of or can share? I am curious this
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