Con Men in Lab Coats [how science corrects itself]

Scientific American ^ | March 2006 | By the editors

[PatrickHenry]

Five decades after it was revealed as a forgery, the Piltdown man still haunts paleoanthropology. Now, thanks to the disgraced stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang, cell biology has a high-profile scandal of its own to live down. Few recent papers in biology have soared as high in acclaim as Hwang's 2004 and 2005 announcements of cloning human embryonic stem cells -- or plummeted as fast into infamy with the discovery that they were rank fakes.

Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research is no less promising today than it was before Hwang's deceit was revealed; most investigators continue to believe that it will eventually yield revolutionary medical treatments. That no one has yet derived ESCs from cloned human embryos simply means that the science is less advanced than has been supposed over the past two years.

Still, Hwang has badly sullied the reputation of a field that already has more than its share of political and public relations problems. Some longtime opponents of ESC research will undoubtedly argue that Hwang's lies only prove that the investigators cannot be trusted to conduct their work ethically, and the public may believe them. This is one more crime against science for which Hwang should be ashamed. (A minor footnote to this affair is our removal of Hwang from the 2005 Scientific American 50 list; see the retraction on page 16.)

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. As the volume of publication rises, fraud will probably rise with it. Because of the growing financial ties between university researchers and corporations, not to mention the jockeying for leadership among nations in high-stakes areas such as stem cells, some scientists may feel more pressure to deliver results quickly -- even if they have to make them up.

These affairs have something in common with the Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass scandals that not long ago rocked mainstream journalism: all these scams exploited the trust that editors extend to submitting authors. The editors and peer reviewers of scientific journals cannot always verify that a submitted paper's results are true and honest; rather their main job is to check whether a paper's methodology is sound, its reasoning cogent and its conclusions noteworthy. Disconfirmation can only follow publication. In that sense, the Hwang case shows how science's self-correcting mechanism is supposed to work.

Yet it is important not to brush off the Hwang case as a fluke without considering its lessons for the future. For instance, Hwang's papers had many co-authors, few of whom seem to have been party to the cover-ups. But what responsibilities should co-authors have for making sure that papers bearing their names are at the least honest?

We should also think hard about whether Hwang's deceit went undetected for months because so many scientists and science journalists wanted to believe that ESC research was progressing rapidly, because that would hasten the arrival of miraculous therapies and other biomedical wonders. Extraordinary results need to be held suspect until confirmed independently. Hwang is guilty of raising false expectations, but too many of us held the ladder for him.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

ping to 301.

[King Prout]

the were certainly the ones making, among other forms of repeated errata, the three specific types of posts I described earlier.

the statement set you call "paranoid" is merely a logical "if this, then that" paradigm.
here is another:
If you understand logic, then calling the statement "paranoid" was a deliberate falsehood on your part.

[King Prout]

yes, netiquette does demand such a ping

[Tribune7]

If you understand logic, then calling the statement "paranoid" was a deliberate falsehood on your part.

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tallhappy]

When it comes to pure science journalism, they can't be beat but when it comes to their editorials...bleagh.

Generally the articles are written by scientists for a lay readership so I wouldn't call it science journalism.

[King Prout]

and on that note, I must now satisfy my peculiar hunger for waffles. ttyl

[metmom]

efficiency when combined with the notion of "special creation" would predict that the human embryo would not develop features which would not be present in the child (gillslits and tails, for example), as doing so squanders energy and biological activity for no utility.

That would be just your interpretation of what you think *special creation* would say. I don't see why *special creation* would be required, or even expected to say, that "the human embryo would not develop features which would not be present in the child". That would be working on the presumption that we know for a fact that there is no other purpose for having those features show up for a time and then disappear and I don't think science can say with certainty, that it has arrived at that point.

Just because there is no known reason for something now, doesn't mean that there isn't one and that it won't be found out sometime down the line. It just means that we don't know NOW.

[tallhappy]

Another reason that their standards are higher is that the penalty when they're caught lying is total loss of career and prestige. Exile for life.

Hee hee hee.

Nice dream.

[King Prout]

inarticulate derision, rather than point by point refutation?

typical.

[tallhappy]

But for the whistle-blower, Dr. Hwang might well be continuing his meteoric career on the wings of his reports in Science and Nature.

The whistle blowers are actually being ostracized. It's horrible what has happened to them.

[Tribune7]

Ready for the creationist conspiracy

[tallhappy]

Yep. Well put.

[TASMANIANRED]

Right after cutting it off while the circulatory system is still pumping, soak just the cut edge.

[AndrewC]

The whistle blowers are actually being ostracized. It's horrible what has happened to them.

Oh, so I guess this is an example of science correcting itself, as the thread topic states.

[tallhappy]

So do you think there is some sort of question about haeckel's drawngs of embryos?

[TASMANIANRED]

That is why you sever it with a chain saw.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" When all else fails say God did it :-) Anyway Darwin had no good answer concerning the eye."

Yes he did. And creationists who should know better lie and say that Darwin had no answer.

"But those who cite it here are probably not. Anyway, rather than calling them liars why not just correct them by linking them to this AIG site?"

I've done that. I was told I was reading his mind and that I just didn't want to accept that Darwin recanted. Never mind the absurdity of him recanting to a stranger and not telling his wife who would have been overjoyed to hear he had regained his faith.

"Now here's some of what they left out in the next "three pages". I won't post it all but I'll link to it to avoid the charge of "quote mining". The next paragraph:"

Yes, Darwin further explains how natural selection can account for the eye, despite the common claim by creationists that he had no answer and was troubled by the eye. You additions (Can't Do That!) are nice examples of the kind of deceit that is common with anti-evos; Darwin didn;t say that nor did he imply that.

The next paragraphs are lame attempts at humor.

" When all else fails say God did it :-) "

Nothing he said even implied this. Again, another example of creationist *creative editing*.

"Anyway Darwin had no good answer concerning the eye."

Sure he did. Besides, the accusation was that he had NO argument at all; that he was puzzled and troubled by the eye. This is horse manure.

" Evolution is a word sometimes ill-defined in the debate."

I said that creationists say there is no evidence. This is a lie.

" I often look at TalkOrigins. They are blinded by a bias far more unreasoning that anything at ICR, AIG or even DU."

And you are too blinded by your biases and and your fears to dare look at the links I gave you. Because they show top creationists in shameful lying. The claim is made that if people accept evolution, they will act like animals and reject all morality. Anti-evos like the ones listed have no business lecturing anybody about morality.

[TASMANIANRED]

Enlighten me.

[TASMANIANRED]

I probably do but I love my dogs too much to deprive them of the fun of running them off.