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Con Men in Lab Coats [how science corrects itself]
Scientific American ^ | March 2006 | By the editors

Posted on 03/05/2006 10:14:03 AM PST by 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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: crevolist; fraud; research; science; stemcells; woosukhwang
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Sometimes scientists disgrace themselves. It hurts, but we clean up the mess and move on.

Please remember to use moderator-compliant FReepSpeaktm. Everyone be nice.

1 posted on 03/05/2006 10:14:05 AM PST by PatrickHenry
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To: VadeRetro; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Doctor Stochastic; js1138; Shryke; RightWhale; ...
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.

2 posted on 03/05/2006 10:15:17 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry

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


3 posted on 03/05/2006 10:19:51 AM PST by js1138 (</I>)
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To: PatrickHenry

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.


4 posted on 03/05/2006 10:22:51 AM PST by 45Auto (Big holes are (almost) always better.)
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To: PatrickHenry
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.

5 posted on 03/05/2006 10:23:22 AM PST by tallhappy (Juntos Podemos!)
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To: PatrickHenry; neverdem

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


6 posted on 03/05/2006 10:26:28 AM PST by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: PatrickHenry
This brought to mind the story where wildlife officials "planted" lynx hairs in Washington forests. See story here.
7 posted on 03/05/2006 10:30:29 AM PST by Muleteam1 (MEDIA-CRITY - ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, etc.)
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To: 45Auto
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.

8 posted on 03/05/2006 10:34:22 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry

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.


9 posted on 03/05/2006 10:51:06 AM PST by omega4412 (Multiculturalism kills)
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To: PatrickHenry
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?
10 posted on 03/05/2006 10:55:01 AM PST by adorno
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To: 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.

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.

11 posted on 03/05/2006 11:00:30 AM PST by Polybius
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To: 45Auto

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


12 posted on 03/05/2006 11:02:34 AM PST by brainstem223
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To: PatrickHenry
Science throws its bad pennies away. Creation/ID can't do that or their bag would be empty from that day forward.
13 posted on 03/05/2006 11:03:49 AM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Polybius
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.

14 posted on 03/05/2006 11:06:16 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: js1138

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


15 posted on 03/05/2006 11:10:57 AM PST by Tribune7
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To: VadeRetro
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.

16 posted on 03/05/2006 11:10:58 AM PST by PatrickHenry (Virtual Ignore for trolls, lunatics, dotards, scolds, & incurable ignoramuses.)
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To: PatrickHenry

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.


17 posted on 03/05/2006 11:14:47 AM PST by Old Professer (The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
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To: PatrickHenry
"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

18 posted on 03/05/2006 11:20:42 AM PST by muir_redwoods (Free Sirhan Sirhan, after all, the bastard who killed Mary Jo Kopechne is walking around free)
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To: Tribune7
Well Jonthan Wells certainly exposed the fact that textbooks carried Ernest Haeckel fake drawings.

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

19 posted on 03/05/2006 11:20:46 AM PST by curiosity
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To: hocndoc; PatrickHenry; NormsRevenge
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


20 posted on 03/05/2006 11:22:22 AM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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