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Cracking down on research fraud

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Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#191

Post by BaronSamedi »

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)…

Academia is not unique in this regard. Superficial metrics have been introduced into many fields with similar results. Warnings about the danger of metrics have been ignored.

Campbell's law: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." (1979)

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#192

Post by haihaibye »

_Microft wrote: post #178
DoreenMichele wrote: post #156

So, some years ago, Temple Grandin wrote a set of standards and McDonald's adopted it and they buy so much beef that it became the de facto new standard for the beef industry. And it's a set of standards that helps beef producers succeed rather than a "gotcha" trying to find who is guilty. And that's the way you make the world a better place. Not by looking for new and creative ways to nail "bad guys" to the wall aft…

The McDonald's story reminds me of the Brussels effect [0] where legislation in the EU is extending (not by law but in its effect) to other parts of the world because it is easier or cheaper to comply with it for all customers than to treat EU costumers and others differently. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

So that's why I have to accept cookies all the time.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#193

Post by TuringNYC »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #81
tlb wrote: post #35

Estimating from my own reading, 1% of research is fraud and 80% is worthless for other reasons. Numbers vary between fields. If that's the case, what's the argument for why we should spend time doing something about the 1%? Solving 100% of the 1% wouldn't change the overall situation much. Possible arguments include: - Fixing the 80% is hard, but fixing the 1% is satisfying (to the aggressively conventional-minded, a…

It's hard to know that a worthless research paper will always be worthless.

Also, who decides what is worthless?

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#194

Post by TuringNYC »

opportune wrote: post #27
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…

All three of those examples are missing a step of like 5-20 years in the middle. Nobody is running a venture fund as a 22 year old ivy grad (barring someone who's taking over for their family member, but in that case it has nothing to do with being an ivy grad), nobody is running the FED right out of a PhD, nobody is a director at a big corporation right out of a PhD. Presumably once those people are in such high-pow…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R._Orszag (NOTE: NOT suggesting he cheated, just noting that lots of people have fast-tracks pre-planned for them w/o the hassle of working their way up.)

Not quite running the FED, but look at the years, pretty close.

Orszag earned an A.B. summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1991 after completing an 80-page long senior thesis titled "Congressional Oversight of the Federal Reserve: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives."[11] He then received a M.Sc. (1992) and a Ph.D. (1997) in economics from the London School of Economics.

He served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy (1997–1998), and as Senior Economist and Senior Adviser on the Council of Economic Advisers (1995–1996) during the Clinton administration. Director of the OMB by 2008.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#195

Post by TuringNYC »

apsec112 wrote: post #54
logicslave wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the point is that the gap in the middle often doesn't matter. I've hung around the Stanford crowd and as I enter my thirties I am awestruck by the opportunities they have regardless of what they have done since graduation. The credential is almost all that matters, as long as they dont mess up massively. A common path is: Graduate Stanford => Work at Mckinsey => Get hired into VC. Graduate Stanford => Raise 1…

I think most people who raise series A and then fail don't get rich. I've certainly known people who raised more than that, couldn't make the business work and then wound up personally bankrupt.

...or they "got operating experience" and end up a partner at a VC firm.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#196

Post by _Microft »

haihaibye wrote: post #192
_Microft wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The McDonald's story reminds me of the Brussels effect [0] where legislation in the EU is extending (not by law but in its effect) to other parts of the world because it is easier or cheaper to comply with it for all customers than to treat EU costumers and others differently. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

So that's why I have to accept cookies all the time.

No, this is either because they have no idea what they are doing, or because they like bossing people around in return for not getting their way regarding user data while pretending this behaviour is because of consumer-unfriendly EU regulations.

It's perfectly fine to set cookies that are necessary for providing the service without having to ask the user.

They only need to get one's permission if they want to do other things like selling data to advertisers.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#197

Post by VHRanger »

TuringNYC wrote: post #194
opportune wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All three of those examples are missing a step of like 5-20 years in the middle. Nobody is running a venture fund as a 22 year old ivy grad (barring someone who's taking over for their family member, but in that case it has nothing to do with being an ivy grad), nobody is running the FED right out of a PhD, nobody is a director at a big corporation right out of a PhD. Presumably once those people are in such high-pow…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R._Orszag (NOTE: NOT suggesting he cheated, just noting that lots of people have fast-tracks pre-planned for them w/o the hassle of working their way up.) Not quite running the FED, but look at the years, pretty close. Orszag earned an A.B. summa cum laude in economics from Princeton University in 1991 after completing an 80-page long senior thesis titled "Congressional Oversight o…

Assistants to the president are often these fresh out of school types.

Obamas speechwriter were in their early 20s as well for instance.

The Fed is way more stringent - - a fresh PhD would be an analyst or research associate, nothing more.

State departments and organizations have a lot more hierarchy for better or worse.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#198

Post by jrochkind1 »

obmelvin wrote: post #160
etrautmann wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HHMI does fund some of the most enormously successful work in biomedical science, but they start with the very best of the best. It's not clear how much of these labs success is the result of the precise funding structure, although it's obviously helpful to spend less time writing grants (or just have additional resources). These labs are up for renewal from HHMI every 5 years, and as such, do face the same pressure…

HHMI is crazy, it has definitely had a positive impact on my girlfriends PhD experience and allowed her to take on a 'post doc killer' project. It's taken her almost 3 years, but she's gotten great quality data, and just got a great review back from Nature Chem with proposed experiments as expected. Also, the period can increase as time goes on. Her lab doesn't have to renew for 9 years I think (they renewed last sum…

> That said, it's obviously a model that really requires them to select the best of the best labs as you mention...

It seems like it's also a model that makes labs better. What labs will be the "best of the best labs" is not independent from the way their funding sources provide pressure/rewards/punishments to do work in certain ways or do certain kinds of work.

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#199

Post by MaxBarraclough »

moralestapia wrote: post #164
exmadscientist wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you didn't understand the grandparent poster's point. They're arguing, basically, that only 1% of research is deliberate fraud, but 80% is simply useless garbage. The reasons for the garbage are varied, but any way you slice it, it's worthless. So why worry so much about the maliciously useless when there's so much incompetent uselessness? That matches my experience back when I was an active researcher. Inten…

Perhaps I was in an extremely corrupt environment (which eventually made me leave), but I would put the "intentional fraud" rate as high as 30% or so. I pointed out one of such instances once and that was the beginning of the end for me in that place. More: My field was Biology. No one double checks anyone or anything. A measurement comes back and you can just pretty much ignore it, in the end you just write whatever…

> I pointed out one of such instances once and that was the beginning of the end for me in that place.

How does that occur? Did they invent some reason you couldn't remain? Were you intending to remain anonymous when reported it? Lastly, were there consequences for the fraudsters?

Re: Cracking down on research fraud

#200

Post by webmaven »

roel_v wrote: post #183
adminprof wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

> 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'.

As I understand it, ghosting becomes a more significant issue when it enables the omitted author to peer-review their co-authors' papers (and vice-versa) without disclosure of the conflict of interest.

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