Con Men in Lab Coats [how science corrects itself]

Scientific American ^ | March 2006 | By the editors

[PatrickHenry]

Sometimes scientists disgrace themselves. It hurts, but we clean up the mess and move on.

Please remember to use moderator-compliant FReepSpeak^tm. Everyone be nice.

[PatrickHenry]

Evolution Ping The List-O-Links

A conservative, pro-evolution science list, now with over 350 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. To assist beginners: But it's "just a theory", Evo-Troll's Toolkit, and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[js1138]

We need to thank the tireless IRC resesearchers for keeping science honest.

[45Auto]

Scientific exploration is eventually vetted to the full extent because there will always be follow up to published works done by other investigators. The high quality peer-reviewed science journals usually manage to pick referees for submitted papers that have as much in depth knowledge of the particular subject under review as do the publishing authors. In certain subjects, like anthropology, less protection is afforded. But in the hard sciences, like chemistry and physics, (the cold fusion flap notwithstanding) its a lot harder to fake results. In the biomedical field, the eventual "outing" of phoneys will occur sooner since new treatment modalities, especially new medicines, have a great deal of not just peer review but regulatory review. All that said, those who falsify their work should be run out of the business or university.

[tallhappy]

Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research is no less promising today than it was before Hwang's deceit was revealed;

True. It's a neutral comment.

most investigators continue to believe that it will eventually yield revolutionary medical treatments.

This, though, isn't true.

[hocndoc]

I'm convinced that the Hwang debacle just shows that there has been a natural progression, evolution if you don't mind the term, of authority and knowledge:
Clergy => Academia => Media => Free Internet

[Muleteam1]

This brought to mind the story where wildlife officials "planted" lynx hairs in Washington forests. See story here.

[PatrickHenry]

Scientific exploration is eventually vetted to the full extent because there will always be follow up to published works done by other investigators.

Correct. That's why shabby episodes like this Hwang affair, although highly regrettable, should give us confidence in the process of science. Individuals are fallible, but the enterprise of science ultimately assures that only good work prevails.

It's somewhat like the process of evolution itself. Bad stuff washes out, and the beneficial remains.

[omega4412]

There are scandals in science due to fraud and wishful thinking, just as there are in politics. If the pols cleaned up their messes a tenth as well as scientists do, we'd be a lot better off.

[adorno]

In recent years, fabricated data and other fakery have been uncovered in work on materials, immunology, breast cancer, brain aneurysms, the discovery of new elements and other subjects.

So, when are they finally going to come around and admit that the same kind of junk science and fakery is also happening in the "science" of global warming?

[Polybius]

There are scandals in science due to fraud and wishful thinking, just as there are in politics. If the pols cleaned up their messes a tenth as well as scientists do, we'd be a lot better off.

Science is like FreeRepublic.

If somebody claims something that sounds fishy, there are dozens of people working frantically to be the first one to prove him wrong.

[brainstem223]

The results called "global warming",,,"greenhouse gases" and "ozone hole" sure have been faked...LOL

[VadeRetro]

Science throws its bad pennies away. Creation/ID can't do that or their bag would be empty from that day forward.

[PatrickHenry]

Science is like FreeRepublic. If somebody claims something that sounds fishy, there are dozens of people working frantically to be the first one to prove him wrong.

Yup. Science is really full of revolutionaries. There's nothing quite so invigorating, and good for the career, as demonstrating that some famous old coot was wrong. The cranks, however, with their whack-job "theories," are forever claiming that there's some "orthodox conspiracy" that won't let their wonderful new ideas get a fair hearing.

[Tribune7]

Well Jonthan Wells certainly exposed the fact that textbooks carried Ernest Haeckel fake drawings.

[PatrickHenry]

Science throws its bad pennies away. Creation/ID can't do that or their bag would be empty from that day forward.

For every bad idea that science tosses out, there's a cult that springs up to perpetuate the discredited notion.

[Old Professer]

That's about as bad as apologizing to your sister for having had the temerity to bring attention to the fact that she is ugly.

[muir_redwoods]

"For every bad idea that science tosses out, there's a cult that springs up to perpetuate the discredited notion."

Somewhat like the crop-circle loonies and the face-on-Mars fans

[curiosity]

Well Jonthan Wells certainly exposed the fact that textbooks carried Ernest Haeckel fake drawings.

Nope. That was exposed by embryologist Michael Richardson in 1997.

[neverdem]

I find it interesting that what exposed this fraud was a fellow Korean with a really sharp pair of eyes, IIRC. God knows, my eyes would not have caught it. That nobody else replicated the fraud's work is pretty obvious.

As an aside, it's weird how the NY Times keeps some of its archives freely accessible.

Clone Scientist Relied on Peers and Korean Pride