To: DBtoo
Many science textbooks have mistakes. A good professor will go through the book and
find them and correct them so the students won't be mislead or confused.
One biochemistry textbook I was burdened with during graduate school was rife with errors.
Given the name of the author, we came up with this phrase:
"It's Right or It's Rawn".
(yeah, the author's last name was Rawn)
There is a lot of sloppy science out there in the world of research, lots of cheating
such as manipulation of data, and stealing of ideas from others goes on.
As the venerable chairman of the graduate department said to me "about one-third
of published works are true and correct, about one-third are usable but have
relatively inconsequential errors, often in the form of honest mistakes; the final third
are full of errors and never should have been published."
I don't know if the breakdown is that even, but I do think that the external review
process used in the science world of the USA (and most of Western Europe) does a
good job of winnowing out the junk, while not overly constraining the flow of
new data/information.
But like any human system it does break down at times.
What is wrong is that more science frauds don't go to jail for mis-use of
government funds (which prop up about every research lab) when a clear
case of fraud is uncovered.
But, in a society where folks in many other institutions don't get the punishment
they manifestly deserve...it's no suprise that fraudulent scientists don't
often end up in orange jumpsuits.
13 posted on
12/14/2002 4:06:54 PM PST by
VOA
To: VOA
it does break down at times. There is a weakness that was discussed on a thread a while back, perhaps a sub-thread there it was noted that in published papers it is common to list several names as co-authors while often the co-authors didn't have much to do with the article. The lead scientist or the lab assistant down the hall might be listed as co-authors without contributing substantially to the paper, or sometimes without seeing the paper. This practice varies with the publishing house and with the institute.
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