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Fraud, so much fraud

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Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#211

Post by asdf123qweasd »

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 some point, the good scientists leave and the fraudsters start to filter for more fraudsters. If that goes on, its over- the academia has gone. Entirely. It can not grow back. Its just a building with conman in labcoats.

My suggestion stands: Give true scientists the ability to hunt fraudsters for budgets. If you hunt and nail down a fraudster, you get his funding for your research.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#212

Post by djfobbz »

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.

Also science: There are more new cases of cancer in the United States now than there have ever been before.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#213

Post by mmooss »

photochemsyn wrote: post #36

Anecdotally, during my (fairly short-lived) academic career, in which I did research with three different groups, 2/3 of them were engaging in fraudulent research practices. Unfortunately the one solid researcher I worked for was in a field I wasn't all that interested in continuing in, and as a naive young person who believed in the myth of academic freedom and didn't really understand the funding issue, I jumped sh…

> As supporting evidence, look at mathematical and astronomical research

Is there evidence of the fraud levels in those fields?

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#214

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

masswerk wrote: post #86
AlbertCory wrote: post #29

Once, at 3Com, Bob Metcalfe introduced a talk by one of his MIT professors with the little joke, "The reason academic politics is so vicious is that nothing's at stake." The guy said, "That depends on whether you consider reputation 'nothing.' " I guess what that shows is, you can always negotiate and compromise over money, but reputation is more of a binary. An academic can fake some work, and as long as he's never…

But this is really a societal/political issue: since we decided that economic capital is king and symbolic capital not that much… (This is really the story of the last four decades or so.)

>But this is really a societal/political issue

Bang on.

Not many people in the academic/technical people realize this, often for their entire lives. In their naive worldview, they cannot even imagine that people can stoop that low.

(embarrassingly and shamefully I used to be one of those naive people)

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#216

Post by hilux »

mmooss wrote: post #195
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?

It's definitely possible that some of them didn't know.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#217

Post by pbreit »

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…

As long as it's all peer reviewed!!

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#218

Post by doctorpangloss »

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…

> raise so many... emotions in me... and I now believe [faking gels] is a common occurrence

On the other hand, shysters always project, and this thread is full of cringe vindications about cheating or faking or whatever. As your "emotions" are probably telling you, that kind of generalization does not feel good, when it is pointed at you, so IMO, you can go and bash your colleagues all you want, but odds are the ones who found results did so legitimately.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#219

Post by illuminant »

sitkack wrote: post #169
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…

If humanity is to mature, we should be an open book when it comes to incentives and build a world purposefully with all incentives aligned to the outcomes we collectively agree upon. https://fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-human-misjudgment/ Charlie Munger's Misjudgment #1: Incentive-caused Bias https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-2yIO8cnvw https://fs.blog/bias-incentives-reinforcement/

If humanity is to mature, we must be critical and take responsibility for ourselves, particularly when the alignment of others are concerned. Such as starting by disagreeing with everything, and validate for one's own.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#220

Post by mhh__ »

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…

Scientific fraud can also compound really badly because people will try to replicate it, and the easiest results to fake are usually the most expensive...
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