3 ms·

I've heard of this happening in the US as well.

sithadmin 7y ago
I've seen this happen in the US among my peers when I was in high school (mid 2000's). Parents with roles in medical / biomed research were by far the most prevalent offenders.
- starpilot 7y ago
  Yeah, similar with the (formerly Intel) Regeneron Science Talent Search. Every kid happens to have a parent who's an eminent researcher of some kind.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    That would be more or less the expected outcome if there was no cheating of any kind going on. If you grow up in a household where the dinner table conversation is about carpentry you’ll pick up a lot of background knowledge by osmosis and if you show the slightest actual interest most parents are very happy to share what they’re interested in with their child. Very few people become researchers without being comparatively obsessed with their field. Having family in a lab also means your path to working there is a lot easier because if you screw something up it’ll reflect badly on whoever brought you in. I’m sure there are tons of fraudulent papers “written” by teenagers but they’re certainly not all fraudulent.
- mountainofdeath 7y ago
  I can confirm this as well and my experience was circa 2009. The two cases where a) parent(s) or other close family were researchers or b) Non-researcher parent leveraged network to get some menial job (washing dishes) and in exchange they get listed somewhere in the research.
spamizbad 7y ago
Usually comes in the form of some faculty's HS-age kid helping out in the lab and getting tacked-on as an author of a paper. Cleaning glassware -> authorship. This sometimes happens to faculty w/o their knowledge, with a grad student or postdoc trying to butter-up their superior.
- tomatotomato37 7y ago
  Reminds me of http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562 http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562
  - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
    Phdcomics are painful to read for someone who did a PhD and went through all the strips during all these years :) Fortunately the comics did not exist at that time otherwise we would have been continuously depressed. I will have to get the movies someday, for masochist reasons.

I've seen this happen in the US among my peers when I was in high school (mid 2000's). Parents with roles in medical / biomed research were by far the most prevalent offenders.

starpilot 7y ago
Yeah, similar with the (formerly Intel) Regeneron Science Talent Search. Every kid happens to have a parent who's an eminent researcher of some kind.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  That would be more or less the expected outcome if there was no cheating of any kind going on. If you grow up in a household where the dinner table conversation is about carpentry you’ll pick up a lot of background knowledge by osmosis and if you show the slightest actual interest most parents are very happy to share what they’re interested in with their child. Very few people become researchers without being comparatively obsessed with their field. Having family in a lab also means your path to working there is a lot easier because if you screw something up it’ll reflect badly on whoever brought you in. I’m sure there are tons of fraudulent papers “written” by teenagers but they’re certainly not all fraudulent.
mountainofdeath 7y ago
I can confirm this as well and my experience was circa 2009. The two cases where a) parent(s) or other close family were researchers or b) Non-researcher parent leveraged network to get some menial job (washing dishes) and in exchange they get listed somewhere in the research.

spamizbad 7y ago

Usually comes in the form of some faculty's HS-age kid helping out in the lab and getting tacked-on as an author of a paper. Cleaning glassware -> authorship. This sometimes happens to faculty w/o their knowledge, with a grad student or postdoc trying to butter-up their superior.

tomatotomato37 7y ago
Reminds me of http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562 http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562
- BrandoElFollito 7y ago
  Phdcomics are painful to read for someone who did a PhD and went through all the strips during all these years :) Fortunately the comics did not exist at that time otherwise we would have been continuously depressed. I will have to get the movies someday, for masochist reasons.