I've said so many times, but we need to go back to a system where it is possible to make a career in science and get funding for replicating other people's work to verify the results.
Fraud, so much fraud
121–130 of 868 posts
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#122[flagged]
Unfortunately, sometimes someone becomes a bad example. That doesn't make them a "scapegoat", the favored defense of people like that. A scapegoat is something that takes on all the sins of a lot of others who skate free. If Masliah is the only one who ever suffers, then he IS a scapegoat, but if this article serves to uncover a lot of other bad actors, then he's not. And if his example serves to warn a lot of other…
The language of the article is as low as it is loaded. This is just Derek Lowe covering for the fact that “Science” magazine and the like have let this scoundrel (and many more like him) carry on, without hindrance, for an entire career; pointing the finger anywhere and everywhere but at the journals themselves. None of this is an isolated incident. It is widespread! There is a new scapegoat every month.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#123These 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…
> Would I have been more successful What are you talking about? You _are_ successful. You're not a fraud like all those other tossers.
Indeed! You would also been more "successful" selling drugs to teens, or trafficking with human organs. But you did not and that's a good thing.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#124These 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.
A true scientist never says, "trust me" or even worse, "trust the science."
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We use EM radiation for illnesses and doctors apply them. Do you have examples of usage as a treatment? I can only think of rTMS (whose effectiveness is contentious).
Gamma knife? Basically the entire field of radiotherapy? TMS is magnetic, not EM (the coil generates a magnetic field, which induces localized currents in the body being treated)
>TMS is magnetic, not EM (the coil generates a magnetic field, which induces localized currents in the body
ME? the coil generates an M which induces localized E in the body as shown by localized currents? (which produce some more M, but only just enough)
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do hate the player. People are taught ethics for a reason: no set of rules and laws are sufficient to ensure integrity of the system. We rely on personal integrity. This is why we teach it to our children.
If people can get away with it, they will do it. Rules and punishments for breaking them exist for a reason.
If they can get away with it, some people will do it.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#127This is terribly terribly frustrating. For every one of these cheats there are hundreds of honest, extremely hard-working ETHICAL scientists who toil 60 hours a week doing the thing they love. It is also terribly frustrating that, being human after all, smooth talkers with a confident stride, an easy smile, eager to shake hands can and do quickly climb the academic ladder, especially the administrative latter.
This makes me terribly sad.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do hate the player. People are taught ethics for a reason: no set of rules and laws are sufficient to ensure integrity of the system. We rely on personal integrity. This is why we teach it to our children.
If people can get away with it, they will do it. Rules and punishments for breaking them exist for a reason.
> If people can get away with it, they will do it.
This is not universally true and individuals and societies don't have to be organized this way.
Why are streets in some countries filled with trash when others are clean? My community does not have anyone policing littering - yet our streets, parks and public areas are litter free.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#129I shared this article with an MD/PhD friend who has done research at two of the three most famous science universities in America ... and she said "this [not this guy, this phenomenon] is why I left science."
Maybe it's like elite running - everyone who stays competitive above a certain level is cheating, and if you want to enjoy watching the sport, you just learn to look the other way. Except that the stakes for humanity are much higher in science than in sport.
Re: Fraud, so much fraud
#130Earlier 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.
We should really do some more honest crusades to export our honest values to the non believers to make the world a better, more honest place.