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Fraud, so much fraud

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Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#331

Post by breuleux »

jimbokun wrote: post #260
breuleux wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be careful about that. Faking replications is even easier than faking research, so if you place a lot of importance on them, expect the rate of fraud in replication studies to explode. This is a very difficult problem to solve.

To elaborate, you need to give equal value to well implemented studies failing to replicate a result, as you do to studies replicating a result.

Well of course, but I don't think that would necessarily help much. The point is that you don't really need to do anything: you know what the results should be, and you know you are unlikely to get pushback, so there's only an incentive to do the strict minimum to create plausibility that you ran the experiments.

Basically, I think there is a sizable risk that a large number of replications would be fraudulent or half-assed, which dilutes their value. Paradoxically, the more this policy suppresses fraud or mistakes in original research, the less people will perform replication in good faith.

I could be wrong, but people are endlessly creative at subverting systems when the stakes are high, so I'm wary of simple solutions. To be fair, it's probably better than the current system, just not as much as we'd like.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#332

Post by _heimdall »

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…

The fact that it can still be considered science when intentional fraud is involved is a huge problem itself.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#333

Post by AndrewKemendo »

If I have learned anything over 40 years, is that the number of people who actually live in a way consistent with hypothesis testing, data collection, evidence evaluation framework required to have scientific confidence in future action or even claims is effectively zero

That includes people who consider themselves professional scientists, PhD‘s authors, leaders etc.

The only people I know who live “scientifically” consistently are people considered “neurodivergent”, along the autism-adhd-odd spectrum, which forces them into creating the type of mechanisms that are actually scientific and as required by their conditions.

Nevertheless, we should expect better from people; and on average need to do better in aligning how they think to how science, when robustly demonstrated, demonstrates with staggering predictability how the world works, compared to all other methods of understanding the universe.

The fact that the people carrying the torch of science don’t live up to the standard is expected - hence peer review.

This is an indictment of the incentives and pace at which bad science is revealed (like in this case) is always too slow, but science is the one place where eventually you’re going to either get exposed as a fraud or never followed in the first place.

There’s no other philosophy that has a higher bar of having to conform with all versions of reality forever.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#334

Post by searine »

lupire wrote: post #318
searine wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a ridiculous exaggeration. Yes, like in every walk of life, fraud happens. However, the extreme success of academic science shows that most of it is real, honest, work.

How so? The fraction of academic science that is applied to anything, anywhere, with clearly identifiable impact is both a tiny fraction of academic science, and also often detrimental quality of impact.

Pretty much every industry functions on a foundation of basic scientific knowledge discovered in academic labs, run by honest people trying to understand the natural world.

Fraud happens. Bad theories happen. The slow turn of scientific wheels takes centuries to crush them but it will always win. Profit doesn't turn those wheels. Our entire modern lifestyle is the impact.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#335

Post by cscurmudgeon »

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.)

The person who did this fraud decided that symbolic capital > economic capital (by being in academia/govt).

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#336

Post by bartathe »

moralestapia wrote: post #193

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…

"Four of the top ten" research institutions is probably part of the reason for your experiences. I went to an elite private undergrad as a scholarship student and was sexually abused by the son of high powered lawyers, probably awful people themselves, who targeted scholarship students, international students, etc. because we were vulnerable with no recourse. I then went to a highly ranked but not super sexy public school for my PhD and my experience has been significantly better.

Bad actors are attracted to glamor and prestige because they're part of the cloaks and levers they use to escape consequences. Bad actors are far less attracted to, just as an example, living in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Indiana and telling people at conferences that they work at UW rather than Cambridge. UCs are also vastly more welcoming and supportive of working and middle class students than HYPSM even at the graduate level. That doesn't mean that you won't find any assholes at these places, and go too low in the rankings and you'll see ugly competition over scarce resources, but there's a sweet spot where more honorable people who aren't chasing prestige cluster and you'll find more support and recourse. Public schools ranked 5-15 are best for students without significant, significant social savvy and other forms of protection, IMO.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#337

Post by bluecheese452 »

asdf123qweasd wrote: post #211
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.

All the fraudsters will nail the honest ones before they know what hit them.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#338

Post by molave »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #333

If I have learned anything over 40 years, is that the number of people who actually live in a way consistent with hypothesis testing, data collection, evidence evaluation framework required to have scientific confidence in future action or even claims is effectively zero That includes people who consider themselves professional scientists, PhD‘s authors, leaders etc. The only people I know who live “scientifically” c…

It's disheartening to think that the virtues you are told to have as a kid are considered "weak sauce" once you are an adult.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#339

Post by mkhattab »

Does anyone know of an up-to-date or live visualization of the amount of scientific fraud? And perhaps also measuring the second order effects? i.e. poisoning of the well via citations to the fraudulent papers.

It's hard to tell at this point if it's just selection bias or if the scientific fraud problem has outgrown the scope of self-correction.

Re: Fraud, so much fraud

#340

Post by lupire »

dyauspitr wrote: post #161
layer8 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO “evil” is a misconception. People have different beliefs and psychological needs, and placed in certain incentive structures that has the outcomes that we see. You can call certain behaviors “evil”, but that doesn’t explain anything about why the behaviors occur.

Physical pain is objective. Someone inflecting physical pain is evil unless it’s in self defense or common sense situations like a doctor performing surgery.

Physical pain is one of the most subjective concepts in the Universe.
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