One in seven scientists say colleagues fake data

The Times ^ | 6/4/2009 | Hannah Devlin

[bruinbirdman]

Faking scientific data and failing to report commercial conflicts of interest are far more prevalent than previously thought, a study suggests.

One in seven scientists says that they are aware of colleagues having seriously breached acceptable conduct by inventing results. And around 46 per cent say that they have observed fellow scientists engage in “questionable practices”, such as presenting data selectively or changing the conclusions of a study in response to pressure from a funding source.

However, when scientists were asked about their own behaviour only 2 per cent admitted to having faked results.

Daniele Fanelli, of the University of Edinburgh, who carried out the investigation, believes that high-profile cases such as that of Hwang Woo-Suk, the South Korean scientist disgraced for fabricating human stem cell data, are less unusual than is generally assumed. “Increasing evidence suggests that known frauds are just the tip of the iceberg and that many cases are never discovered,” he said.

The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One, are based on a review of 21 scientific misconduct surveys carried out between 1986 and 2005. The results paint a picture of a profession in which dishonesty and misrepresentation are widespread.

In all the surveys people were asked about both their own research practices and those of colleagues. Misconduct was divided into two categories: fabrication, the actual invention of data; and lesser breaches that went under the heading “questionable practices”. These included dropping data points based on a “gut feeling” and failing to publish data that contradict one’s previous research.

The discrepancy between the number of scientists owning up to misconduct and those having been observed by colleagues is likely to be in part due to fears over anonymity, Dr Fanelli suggests. “Anyone who has ever falsified research is probably unwilling to reveal it despite

[Larry Lucido]

28% of your comment is unsupported by the other 3%.

[dsc]

“To someone who is as suspicious as I am of Obama’s Marxist ambitions for this country, I see this as one more chess move to undo our conventional electoral process so that we ultimately it will no longer have a recognizable representative democracy.”

Well, it would be difficult to be too suspicious of Hussein Schickelbama’s ambitions, I’ll give you that.

[CommerceComet]

I bet the true numbers are even higher.

As someone who has worked in academe for 30 years, I am not impressed by the ethics of intellectuals. They are probably more dishonest than the average person and much better at rationalizing their behavior. They also seem to have the attitude that they are smarter than everyone else and thus the normal rules of society don't apply to them.

It is this arrogance which would lead them to falsify data because they are so convinced of the truth of their theory that the data which disproves it must be false. Of course, there are also those little issues of amassing a publication record, securing grants, getting cited by others, building a reputation, getting promoted, securing a chaired professorship, landing lucrative consulting engagements, etc. Any of these can provide the incentive for a little fudging.