6 ms·

A Crime in the Cancer Lab

73 points by azuajef 10y ago

DougN7 10y ago
I have a buddy that went on an archaeology dig in Israel. He saw first hand that artifacts that contradicted what the leader of the dig was trying to prove were destroyed. Scientists are people. But we base so verymuch on their work that integrity needs to be the highest priority. Maybe we need a science UBI for grants??
- epistasis 10y ago
  I would hope that intentional destruction of artifacts would result in jail time and also the offender never being allowed near artifacts again in their lifetime. Hopefully as recording tools become more prevalent, such crimes become easy to expose. It's one thing to dump alcohol in an experiment that costs $10k and can be replicated. It's another order of magnitude to destroy something that can't be recovered. People some times talk about alternatives to grants that are like UBI, but the mechanics seem odd and hard to get right since you need some sort of filter, unlike UBI. I think a better way may be to find more career staff scientists and fewer "trainees." The idea being that PIs can no longer just use up the formational years of dozens of smart people and then foist them onto a job market with no prospects, and that PIs would have to hire career scientists that get paid enough to, say, raise a child or put a small percentage away for retirement. The disadvantage being that a 2-3 year fundinf cycle can still be fairly destructive if somebody has to find a new lab potentially that quickly. So longer term commitments of smaller amounts of money may also may make sense... There's no easy solution but fortunately the NIH and NSF seem more interested in changing these thing than they did 10 years ago.
  - Retric 10y ago
    The most obvious solution is to in increase the grad school stipend. If grad students made more then you avoid those 'wasted years'. Yes, this means we would have fewer post grads, but that seems like a reasonable trade off.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Archeology has been weaponised there and it's now part of the settlers side of the conflict. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-settlers-are-using-archaeological-digs-as-cover-to-take-palestinian-land-british-government-10127250.html%3Famp?client=safari https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/worl... http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-land-claims-archaeology-ideology-2013111113012956687.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-la...
  - YZF 10y ago
    The Al-Jazeera article is reasonably balanced for Arab media though I would advise people reading it to understand that it does present the Palestinian viewpoint. Listen to both sides and make up your own mind. Some background on Silwan/Shiloach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan By the way, putting aside the conflict, if you get a chance to go visit the tunnel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel ) I highly recommend it. It's an amazing feat of engineering going back thousands of years.
- YZF 10y ago
  I find it extremely hard to believe archeological artifacts would be destroyed in a dig in Israel. Israel has very strict laws regulating archeological digs. You can go to jail for 3 years for destroying archeological artifacts. Get your buddy to file a complaint?
emeraldd 10y ago
I find it interesting that the majority of the "outside assistance" in this case came back to Heather as the culprit. On one hand, it makes a lot of sense that the person most immediately involved would likely be the prime suspect. On the other hand, it also leaves you wondering just how willing to step outside their own pre-existing biases these people are?
- lutusp 10y ago
  > On the other hand, it also leaves you wondering just how willing to step outside their own pre-existing biases these people are? If (as is true in cases like this one) a large database of solved cases reveal that the crimes are often self-inflicted, then it's not bias, it's common sense and the dispassionate result of statistical analysis. Consider the murder of marriage partners -- in very many cases, the perpetrator is the other marriage partner, and that's the first person investigated. Is that bias, or common sense? "Over 71% of Wives Kill Their Husbands" : https://rmaxgenactivepua.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/over-71-of-wives-kill-their-husbands-stats-we-have-to-take-notice-of/ https://rmaxgenactivepua.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/over-71-of... (The title is somewhat misleading -- it means that, when a husband is murdered, in 71% of cases, the perpetrator is the partner.)
  - brontosnorous 10y ago
    Or perhaps: 71% or married men, who are murdered, are found to have been killed by their spouses.
  - emeraldd 10y ago
    True, the point where it becomes bias in my mind is when they decide that the assumption is true and don't look further than the first guess.
    - somestag 10y ago
      Yes, this is definitely the true issue. Suspect whomever you want; carry out your investigation with an open mind regardless. To disregard a pattern is stupidity, but to enslave yourself to it is laziness.
danso 10y ago
I was surprised to see the actual culprit's name show up frequently on Google, as apparently this is a well-known case: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467516a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467516a.html And apparently, such sabotage is so rare that the Ames case is frequently cited whenever sabotage is suspected: https://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/jmsierra/documents/Enserink2014Sci.pdf https://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/jmsierra/documents/...
- virtuabhi 10y ago
  I don't think that sabotages are rare (as the lab head mentions in the NYT article). Though reporting to police certainly is.
  - bsder 10y ago
    It's also going to be damn hard to even notice sabotage. Sure, alcohol in media is easy to smell. But there are a zillion ways to hose someone without leaving any trace. These kinds of experiments tend to be subtle and fiddly. Getting a result even without interference is difficult enough.
- acqq 10y ago
  And if the story sounds hard to believe, the Nature blog entry from 2011: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/04/lab_sabotage_deemed_research_m_1.html http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/04/lab_sabotage_deemed_res... "Nature releases exclusive surveillance tapes, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act in Michigan."
NumberSix 10y ago
The finger pointing at the graduate student Heather Ames reminds me of the concept of gas lighting, derived from the 1944 movie Gaslight: gas·light ˈɡaslīt/ verb gerund or present participle: gaslighting manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting This is a fairly common bullying tactic where the bully both bullies, usually secretively, and tries to make the victim look like a nut case. The story, with others pointing the finger at Heather Ames, raises the question whether more people were involved than the single researcher who was caught on video. While self-sabotage was certainly a possibility, sabotage by a colleague or co-worker was clearly a substantial possibility and reportedly proved to be the case.
zellyn 10y ago
I was floored at the repeated circling back to suspect Heather as the suspect, and the lack of a "mea culpa" by the author for ever having seriously suspected her in the first place. We are so, so quick to blame the victim - it lets us believe that the one thing that is "out of alignment" with our belief in a good and just world is the only thing out of alignment, even if we have to blame someone who is clearly a victim, instead of having to search for even more evidence that dispels our too-perfect mirage of the world we live in.
- wyager 10y ago
  It's because the author was being honest about their thought process. Heather was the most likely suspect, a priori. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that, so the author has nothing to apologize for. If the author had punished Heather based on his suspicions, that would have been wrong.
  - zellyn 10y ago
    I fail to understand why a person in a lab who approaches a superior to lodge a complaint that their work has been sabotaged is "a priori" the most likely suspect. Perhaps you have some kind of lab-sabotage data you're referring to? Do you have a link. I think if someone comes to you and tells you their work has been sabotaged, the most straightforward thing to do is to believe them.
    - eastWestMath 10y ago
      Someone with a failing business is going to be the prime suspect when it burns down, a researcher whose project appears to be going nowhere will be the prime suspect when their samples are sabotaged. It's fairly straight-forward reasoning.
- emn13 10y ago
  You seem to draw a parallel to other types of victim blaming. Normally, people mean by that blaming the victim not because they are the perpetrator, but because they should have protected themselves better (or have hidden their vulnerability better, etc). This incident has nothing to do with that kind of vicim blaming - so I'm not sure what you're trying to point out here. Furthermore, applying a label like "victim blaming" pejoratively is harmful to a rational discussion because you imply that it is intrinsically harmful, even though that's impossible to state categorically - the notion of blame and victim are so broad you can apply thing to all kinds of beneficial behavior. It's no better than the cliche "think of the kids".
powertower 10y ago
Found a picture of the victim and perpetrator - http://mabuhaycity.com/photoplog/images/205/large/1_1073_00000001.jpg http://mabuhaycity.com/photoplog/images/205/large/1_1073_000... And this one has a shot from the hidden camera... https://image.slidesharecdn.com/researchmisconduct-110506045110-phpapp02/95/infamous-cases-of-research-misconduct-21-728.jpg https://image.slidesharecdn.com/researchmisconduct-110506045... Its always good to put a face to the name. It makes it more real.
slacka 10y ago
The end of the article > This axiom is especially important in a “post-truth world” where we must work even harder to question our assumptions, whether in science, medicine, justice or any other field of problem solving. tied in perfectly with the ad that followed below > The New York Times. Truth. It's hard to find. But easier with 1000+ journalists looking. Subscribe to The Times. With new administration that is hostile to truth, we need real journalists now more than ever. I've tried to do my part to support them with subscriptions to NYT and Washington Post.

73 points by azuajef 10y ago

I have a buddy that went on an archaeology dig in Israel. He saw first hand that artifacts that contradicted what the leader of the dig was trying to prove were destroyed. Scientists are people. But we base so verymuch on their work that integrity needs to be the highest priority. Maybe we need a science UBI for grants??

epistasis 10y ago
I would hope that intentional destruction of artifacts would result in jail time and also the offender never being allowed near artifacts again in their lifetime. Hopefully as recording tools become more prevalent, such crimes become easy to expose. It's one thing to dump alcohol in an experiment that costs $10k and can be replicated. It's another order of magnitude to destroy something that can't be recovered. People some times talk about alternatives to grants that are like UBI, but the mechanics seem odd and hard to get right since you need some sort of filter, unlike UBI. I think a better way may be to find more career staff scientists and fewer "trainees." The idea being that PIs can no longer just use up the formational years of dozens of smart people and then foist them onto a job market with no prospects, and that PIs would have to hire career scientists that get paid enough to, say, raise a child or put a small percentage away for retirement. The disadvantage being that a 2-3 year fundinf cycle can still be fairly destructive if somebody has to find a new lab potentially that quickly. So longer term commitments of smaller amounts of money may also may make sense... There's no easy solution but fortunately the NIH and NSF seem more interested in changing these thing than they did 10 years ago.
- Retric 10y ago
  The most obvious solution is to in increase the grad school stipend. If grad students made more then you avoid those 'wasted years'. Yes, this means we would have fewer post grads, but that seems like a reasonable trade off.
lostlogin 10y ago
Archeology has been weaponised there and it's now part of the settlers side of the conflict. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-settlers-are-using-archaeological-digs-as-cover-to-take-palestinian-land-british-government-10127250.html%3Famp?client=safari https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/worl... http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-land-claims-archaeology-ideology-2013111113012956687.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/11/israeli-la...
- YZF 10y ago
  The Al-Jazeera article is reasonably balanced for Arab media though I would advise people reading it to understand that it does present the Palestinian viewpoint. Listen to both sides and make up your own mind. Some background on Silwan/Shiloach: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan By the way, putting aside the conflict, if you get a chance to go visit the tunnel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siloam_tunnel ) I highly recommend it. It's an amazing feat of engineering going back thousands of years.
YZF 10y ago
I find it extremely hard to believe archeological artifacts would be destroyed in a dig in Israel. Israel has very strict laws regulating archeological digs. You can go to jail for 3 years for destroying archeological artifacts. Get your buddy to file a complaint?

emeraldd 10y ago

I find it interesting that the majority of the "outside assistance" in this case came back to Heather as the culprit. On one hand, it makes a lot of sense that the person most immediately involved would likely be the prime suspect. On the other hand, it also leaves you wondering just how willing to step outside their own pre-existing biases these people are?

lutusp 10y ago
> On the other hand, it also leaves you wondering just how willing to step outside their own pre-existing biases these people are? If (as is true in cases like this one) a large database of solved cases reveal that the crimes are often self-inflicted, then it's not bias, it's common sense and the dispassionate result of statistical analysis. Consider the murder of marriage partners -- in very many cases, the perpetrator is the other marriage partner, and that's the first person investigated. Is that bias, or common sense? "Over 71% of Wives Kill Their Husbands" : https://rmaxgenactivepua.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/over-71-of-wives-kill-their-husbands-stats-we-have-to-take-notice-of/ https://rmaxgenactivepua.wordpress.com/2013/07/19/over-71-of... (The title is somewhat misleading -- it means that, when a husband is murdered, in 71% of cases, the perpetrator is the partner.)
- brontosnorous 10y ago
  Or perhaps: 71% or married men, who are murdered, are found to have been killed by their spouses.
- emeraldd 10y ago
  True, the point where it becomes bias in my mind is when they decide that the assumption is true and don't look further than the first guess.
  - somestag 10y ago
    Yes, this is definitely the true issue. Suspect whomever you want; carry out your investigation with an open mind regardless. To disregard a pattern is stupidity, but to enslave yourself to it is laziness.

danso 10y ago

I was surprised to see the actual culprit's name show up frequently on Google, as apparently this is a well-known case: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467516a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100929/full/467516a.html And apparently, such sabotage is so rare that the Ames case is frequently cited whenever sabotage is suspected: https://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/jmsierra/documents/Enserink2014Sci.pdf https://www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/jmsierra/documents/...

virtuabhi 10y ago
I don't think that sabotages are rare (as the lab head mentions in the NYT article). Though reporting to police certainly is.
- bsder 10y ago
  It's also going to be damn hard to even notice sabotage. Sure, alcohol in media is easy to smell. But there are a zillion ways to hose someone without leaving any trace. These kinds of experiments tend to be subtle and fiddly. Getting a result even without interference is difficult enough.
acqq 10y ago
And if the story sounds hard to believe, the Nature blog entry from 2011: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/04/lab_sabotage_deemed_research_m_1.html http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/04/lab_sabotage_deemed_res... "Nature releases exclusive surveillance tapes, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act in Michigan."

NumberSix 10y ago

The finger pointing at the graduate student Heather Ames reminds me of the concept of gas lighting, derived from the 1944 movie Gaslight: gas·light ˈɡaslīt/ verb gerund or present participle: gaslighting manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting This is a fairly common bullying tactic where the bully both bullies, usually secretively, and tries to make the victim look like a nut case. The story, with others pointing the finger at Heather Ames, raises the question whether more people were involved than the single researcher who was caught on video. While self-sabotage was certainly a possibility, sabotage by a colleague or co-worker was clearly a substantial possibility and reportedly proved to be the case.

zellyn 10y ago

I was floored at the repeated circling back to suspect Heather as the suspect, and the lack of a "mea culpa" by the author for ever having seriously suspected her in the first place. We are so, so quick to blame the victim - it lets us believe that the one thing that is "out of alignment" with our belief in a good and just world is the only thing out of alignment, even if we have to blame someone who is clearly a victim, instead of having to search for even more evidence that dispels our too-perfect mirage of the world we live in.

wyager 10y ago
It's because the author was being honest about their thought process. Heather was the most likely suspect, a priori. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that, so the author has nothing to apologize for. If the author had punished Heather based on his suspicions, that would have been wrong.
- zellyn 10y ago
  I fail to understand why a person in a lab who approaches a superior to lodge a complaint that their work has been sabotaged is "a priori" the most likely suspect. Perhaps you have some kind of lab-sabotage data you're referring to? Do you have a link. I think if someone comes to you and tells you their work has been sabotaged, the most straightforward thing to do is to believe them.
  - eastWestMath 10y ago
    Someone with a failing business is going to be the prime suspect when it burns down, a researcher whose project appears to be going nowhere will be the prime suspect when their samples are sabotaged. It's fairly straight-forward reasoning.
emn13 10y ago
You seem to draw a parallel to other types of victim blaming. Normally, people mean by that blaming the victim not because they are the perpetrator, but because they should have protected themselves better (or have hidden their vulnerability better, etc). This incident has nothing to do with that kind of vicim blaming - so I'm not sure what you're trying to point out here. Furthermore, applying a label like "victim blaming" pejoratively is harmful to a rational discussion because you imply that it is intrinsically harmful, even though that's impossible to state categorically - the notion of blame and victim are so broad you can apply thing to all kinds of beneficial behavior. It's no better than the cliche "think of the kids".

powertower 10y ago

Found a picture of the victim and perpetrator - http://mabuhaycity.com/photoplog/images/205/large/1_1073_00000001.jpg http://mabuhaycity.com/photoplog/images/205/large/1_1073_000... And this one has a shot from the hidden camera... https://image.slidesharecdn.com/researchmisconduct-110506045110-phpapp02/95/infamous-cases-of-research-misconduct-21-728.jpg https://image.slidesharecdn.com/researchmisconduct-110506045... Its always good to put a face to the name. It makes it more real.

slacka 10y ago

The end of the article > This axiom is especially important in a “post-truth world” where we must work even harder to question our assumptions, whether in science, medicine, justice or any other field of problem solving. tied in perfectly with the ad that followed below > The New York Times. Truth. It's hard to find. But easier with 1000+ journalists looking. Subscribe to The Times. With new administration that is hostile to truth, we need real journalists now more than ever. I've tried to do my part to support them with subscriptions to NYT and Washington Post.