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You're really underestimating how much this happens. One incident is a drop in the bucket, and there won't be a whistleblower every time. IMO the only way to f

by xaa 9y ago

You're really underestimating how much this happens. One incident is a drop in the bucket, and there won't be a whistleblower every time. IMO the only way to fix it, especially in CS type disciplines, is to make it a requirement for publication that all the code is available and easily reproducible. For other disciplines, I don't know the answer. At its core, this is a problem of very high competition and of failures being unpublishable. Really, it's not a great thing to out highly respected scientists who fabricate -- even though they richly deserve it -- because it erodes public confidence in science. It would be better if we could find a way to prevent these things before they happen.

yeukhon 9y ago
I totally understand the institutional and establisment power in place and how many folks out there are on the same boat as this said JHU professor. But this is why we need to blow at every chance we have. We know how policy change takes time at the scale of universe. It takes forever. This is how corruption is defeated or we attempt to defeat corruption in society. Ideally we take out the top guys then all the way down. If we maintain the position that "the wrongdoer is too famous", "he/she is not alone and not fair to single one", then don't bother have peer review journals. I know exactly how corrupted some of the peer recviews can be to be honest. But that's the whole point. If we don't start holding people accountable, espeically the PI, the bad seed will grow and more bad seeds will blossom. Stop the bleeding. This JHU professor is famous so what? Grow up and admit the wrong. He/She is just scared of losing his/her honor and this is exactly what we need to do. Strip the crown and start encouraging people to publish code and dataset openly. If this professor is famous, you can bet he/she most likely didn't do the actual research. It's almost always the graduate students on the co-author list did the research and then sign by the professors. If a professor mentoring can't admit the wrong how can he/she be a good mentor? If he/she instruct the students to take a shortcut, well, guess what, this is real bad. Do we want more bad seeds? Lead by examples. Let's not do more sloppy and dirty research. Someone who brag about his/her successful research but knowing the data is fake is a sad person. Academic is tough - totally understand that. Professor's tenure and salary often tie to the amount of grants they can bring in and the stress is too much for one to do research with ethics and dignity. But this is why we need to hold people accountable, and reform research. This is a complex issue, but it takes courage. I hope powerful researchers and the leaders on research committees on various government agency will start improving the system.
- xaa 9y ago
  I said nothing about fairness. If I thought it were practical and would help, I'd advocate outing every single one of them. I have less than zero sympathy for them. And I totally agree that it is really screwing up science. But to use an analogy, if you have a few weeds in your field/garden, you can pull them. If you have a lot, you need a systemic solution like pesticide. Remember also that the most senior people are close to retirement and if eliminated will in many cases just be replaced by other sociopaths. The worst case scenario for this guy if the whistle were blown would be that he takes early retirement, goes home to enjoy his pension, and probably comes back as part-time/emeritus. People would say, well, it's bad that he fabricated this one time, but his contributions to the field as a whole outweigh this one minor lapse. That's a big difference between when senior and junior people are caught in these situations. He would still maintain a lot of respect and connections -- more than enough to make good on his threat to totally screw GP's career.
  - yeukhon 9y ago
    I agree and I am no saint either. My thought is don't let a bully win. Sure he may go home with an early retirement or just hide behind desk teaching who knows. But his reputation deserves to be punished. Perhaps no one would remember but that's a stain he needs to live up to. How fan we be so sure his other contributions are questionable? I am the type that can't stand at bully coming at me and I will go head to head. I am sorry if you or others have to go through these science bullies. Often we critize people demoting science in climate change and yet we ourselves can't do true science either

by xaa 9y ago

yeukhon 9y ago

I totally understand the institutional and establisment power in place and how many folks out there are on the same boat as this said JHU professor. But this is why we need to blow at every chance we have. We know how policy change takes time at the scale of universe. It takes forever. This is how corruption is defeated or we attempt to defeat corruption in society. Ideally we take out the top guys then all the way down. If we maintain the position that "the wrongdoer is too famous", "he/she is not alone and not fair to single one", then don't bother have peer review journals. I know exactly how corrupted some of the peer recviews can be to be honest. But that's the whole point. If we don't start holding people accountable, espeically the PI, the bad seed will grow and more bad seeds will blossom. Stop the bleeding. This JHU professor is famous so what? Grow up and admit the wrong. He/She is just scared of losing his/her honor and this is exactly what we need to do. Strip the crown and start encouraging people to publish code and dataset openly. If this professor is famous, you can bet he/she most likely didn't do the actual research. It's almost always the graduate students on the co-author list did the research and then sign by the professors. If a professor mentoring can't admit the wrong how can he/she be a good mentor? If he/she instruct the students to take a shortcut, well, guess what, this is real bad. Do we want more bad seeds? Lead by examples. Let's not do more sloppy and dirty research. Someone who brag about his/her successful research but knowing the data is fake is a sad person. Academic is tough - totally understand that. Professor's tenure and salary often tie to the amount of grants they can bring in and the stress is too much for one to do research with ethics and dignity. But this is why we need to hold people accountable, and reform research. This is a complex issue, but it takes courage. I hope powerful researchers and the leaders on research committees on various government agency will start improving the system.

xaa 9y ago
I said nothing about fairness. If I thought it were practical and would help, I'd advocate outing every single one of them. I have less than zero sympathy for them. And I totally agree that it is really screwing up science. But to use an analogy, if you have a few weeds in your field/garden, you can pull them. If you have a lot, you need a systemic solution like pesticide. Remember also that the most senior people are close to retirement and if eliminated will in many cases just be replaced by other sociopaths. The worst case scenario for this guy if the whistle were blown would be that he takes early retirement, goes home to enjoy his pension, and probably comes back as part-time/emeritus. People would say, well, it's bad that he fabricated this one time, but his contributions to the field as a whole outweigh this one minor lapse. That's a big difference between when senior and junior people are caught in these situations. He would still maintain a lot of respect and connections -- more than enough to make good on his threat to totally screw GP's career.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  I agree and I am no saint either. My thought is don't let a bully win. Sure he may go home with an early retirement or just hide behind desk teaching who knows. But his reputation deserves to be punished. Perhaps no one would remember but that's a stain he needs to live up to. How fan we be so sure his other contributions are questionable? I am the type that can't stand at bully coming at me and I will go head to head. I am sorry if you or others have to go through these science bullies. Often we critize people demoting science in climate change and yet we ourselves can't do true science either