[Wonder Warthog]

"In a larger view, what does it say about the integrity of academia that they are constantly being "caught" faking data, misrepresenting findings and flat out lying? What has happened to integrity? This is the kind of future we can expect? All research will be meaningless and unreliable if it can't be trusted."

The increase in "loss of integrity" is a symptom of the "socialist/liberal" disease in which any lie is OK as long as the perpetrator of the falsehood feels he is doing it "for a good cause". That this propensity spills over from the left into other spheres of philosophy is an unfortunate consequence of the above.

However--in the long run, it doesn't matter, as THE TRUTH "WILL"!!!! COME OUT. The fact that the falsifiers are being investigated and identified on a regular basis actually says that the overall process is working as it should--it just takes a bit longer and a bit more effort than it used to in the "old days" when research integrity was held in higher esteem.

[Adder]

"The increase in "loss of integrity" is a symptom of the "socialist/liberal" disease in which any lie is OK as long as the perpetrator of the falsehood feels he is doing it "for a good cause"."
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I agree with that! Yet, even though much of it is being caught, how much is not? How many "scientific studies" are being used to make laws and policies that are simply flawed and outright lies[such as the second hand smoke study from 1993 later discredited but still cited everytime a smoking ban is proposed or the "biologist" caught planting jaguar[?] hair to claim its territory had spread to that section of forest, et al.], One can be vigilant but not perfect. The trust invested in the amphorous "scientific community" is disappearing with each new revelation of misconduct.

[Carry_Okie]

However--in the long run, it doesn't matter, as THE TRUTH "WILL"!!!! COME OUT. The fact that the falsifiers are being investigated and identified on a regular basis actually says that the overall process is working as it should--it just takes a bit longer and a bit more effort than it used to in the "old days" when research integrity was held in higher esteem.

You know, I wish I shared your optimism. In my current field of environmental politics, I have seen a MASSIVE increase in bogus "science" and no sign that it is abating, indeed there is a building culture around self-justified scientific distortion:

"Gaian perception connects us with the seamless nature of existence, and opens up a new approach to scientific research based on scientific institutions arising from scientists' personal, deeply subjective ecological experience. When the young scientist in training has sat on a mountain top, and has completed her first major assignment to 'think like a mountain', that is, to dwell and deeply identify with a mountain, mechanistic thinking will never take root in her mind. When she eventually goes out to practise her science in the world, she will be fully aware that every interconnected aspect of it has its own intrinsic value, irrespective of its usefulness to the economic activities of human beings."

- STEPHAN HARDING

These monsters are taking over the universities, as you know. They are turning subjectivity into a religion. It is deliberate. Such people are easy to use and wealth can thus be redirected by democratic means. Note how we seem to be moving in the direction of regulating carbon dioxide, notwithstanding the growing scientific indication that anthropogenic warming is miniscule or that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are niether unpredented nor destructive. It's mere political force intended to enrich the politically dominant.

No, I am not so optimistic.