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Fraud, so much fraud

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Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#191

Post by momoschili »

antisthenes wrote: post #183
testfoobar wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Similar - when I was younger, I would never have suspected that a scientist was committing fraud. Unfortunately many less bright people seem to interpret this as "never trust science", when in reality science is still the best way to push humanity forward and alleviate human suffering, _despite_ all the fraud and misaligned incentives that may influence it.

Agree. The fact that we are seeing this kind of discourse within the scientific community is in my opinion a great argument for the scientific method.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#192

Post by mmooss »

daedrdev wrote: post #28

Is there no liability for the author? There are billions of dollars wasted in drug trials and research that can be tied to this fraud. Surely they can face some legal issues due to this?

I was thinking about it: If I come across someone seriously injured, try to help them, and accidentally hurt them, I'm protected (in many places) by Good Samaritan laws.

But if a health care professional does the same thing, and does something negligent, then they are usually liable. They are professionals and are held to a different standard. Similarly, that's why lawyers keep writing: this is not legal advice and you are not my client.

Perhaps a professional in science should have higher standards. Obviously they shouldn't be sued for being wrong - that would destroy science, disregard the scientific method's means to address inaccuracy, and go against science's nature as the means to develop new knowledge. But intentionally deceiving people perhaps should be illegal and/or create liability: When you publish something, people depend on its fundamental honesty and will act on it.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#193

Post by moralestapia »

I've been saying this for years and have been punished for that. Even here.

I've done Biology and CS for almost 20 years now, I've worked at four of the top ten research institutions in the world. The ratio of honest to bullshit academics is alarmingly low.

Most of these people should be in jail. Not only do they commit academic fraud, many of them commit other types of crimes as well. When I was a PhD student, my 4 year old daughter was kidnapped by staff at KAUST. Mental and physical abuse is quite common and somewhat "accepted" in these institutions. Sexual harassment and sexual abuse is through the roof.

I am very glad that, slowly, these things are starting to vent out. This is one real swamp that needs to be drained.

Some smartass could come up and say "where is your evidence for this?". This is what allows this abhorrent behavior to thrive. Do you think these people are not smart enough to commit these crimes in covert ways? The reason why they do it is because they know no one will find out and they will get away with it.

What's the solution? I've thought about this a lot, a lot. I think a combination of policies and transparency could go a long way.

Because of what they did to me, I am fully committed to completely destroy and expunge people who do these things from academia. If you, for whatever reason, would like to help me on this mission, shoot me an email, there's a few ideas already taking shape towards that goal.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#194

Post by NemoNobody »

vasco wrote: post #41
neom wrote: post #11

I'm the furthest thing from a scientist unless you count 3,000 hours of PBS spacetime, but I love science and so science/academia fraud to me, feels kinda like the worst kinda fraud you can commit. Financial fraud can cause suicides and ruin in lives, sure, but I feel like academic fraud just sets the whole of humanity back? I also feel that through my life I've (maybe wrongly) placed a great deal of respect and trus…

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…

Is absolutely as much faith as religion. Just the basic assumption that the universe didn't come from anything is as baseless as that it does.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#195

Post by mmooss »

owenpalmer wrote: post #181

> But at the same time I have a lot of sympathy for the honest scientists who have worked with Masliah over the years and who now have to deal with this explosion of mud over parts of their records. This really is quite unfortunate.

Is it? Is it possible that none of them knew? Should they have responsibilities to go with the benefits of putting their names on major discoveries?

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#196

Post by regus »

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.

People doing bad things, including Christians, is completely in line with the Christian teachings of original sin, the fall and concupiscence. It is human nature to do bad things and it is very difficult to over come this behavior.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#197

Post by Ekaros »

I am thinking if some type bounty program which would take sufficient proof on fraud would work. Sadly I don't think anyone will fund it. And those participating likely won't be taken well in the circles...

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#198

Post by mmooss »

mchannon wrote: post #150
GeekyBear wrote: post #121

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.

This leads to a tragedy of the commons. Say a random nation, say, Sweden, devotes 100% of their governmental and university research budgets toward replication. 70% of the studies they attempt are successfully replicated. 20% are inconclusive or equivocal. 10% are clearly debunked. Now the world is richer, but Sweden? No return on investment for the Swedes, other than perhaps a little advanced notice on what hot new…

Could it be part of the training for young researchers - replicate existing experiments?

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#199

Post by breuleux »

mlsu wrote: post #80
jimbokun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My recommendation is for journals to place at least equal importance to publishing replications as for the original studies. Studies that have not been replicated should be published clearly marked as preliminary results. And then other scientists can pick those up and try to replicate them. And institutions need to give near equal weight to replications as to original research when deciding on promotions. Should be…

We can solve this at the grant level. Stipulate that for every new paper a group publishes from a grant, that group must also publish a replication of an existing finding. Publication would happen in pairs, so that every novel thing would be matched with a replication. Replications could be matched with grants: if you receive $100,000 grant, you'd get the $100,000 you need, plus another $100,000 which you could use t…

There would still be incentives for collusion (I "reproduce" your research, you "reproduce" mine), and researchers pretending to reproduce papers but actually not bothering (especially if they believe that the original research was done properly).

Ultimately, I'm not sure how to incentivize reproduction of research: it's very easy to fake a successful reproduction (you already know the results, and the original researcher will not challenge you), so you don't want to reward that too much. Whereas incentivizing failed reproductions might lead some scientists to sabotage their own reproduction efforts in ways that are subtle enough to have plausible deniability.

Proceeding by pairs is probably not enough. You probably need 5-6 replications per paper to make sure that at least one attempt is honest and competent, and make the others afraid to do the wrong thing and stand out.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#200

Post by owenpalmer »

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #170
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…

> At the time (20+ years ago) it didn't occur to me that anybody would intentionally modify images of gels to promote the results they claimed Fraud I suspect is only tip of the iceberg, worse still is delusion that what is taught is factually correct. A large portion of mainstream knowledge that we call 'science' is incorrect. While fraudulent claims are relatively easy to detect, claims that are backed up by ignora…

> A large portion of mainstream knowledge that we call 'science' is incorrect.

How do you know that? Can you prove it scientifically?

> claims that are backed up by ignorance/delusion

In that case, they are not "backed up"

> I will not offer to back up my above statements

> an individual has to learn it on their own, through ... inquiry

May I "inquire" about your reasoning?

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