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The problem I see is that scientists make so little money it is very tempting for them to accept indecent offers like "We pay you X if your study about Y finds

The problem I see is that scientists make so little money it is very tempting for them to accept indecent offers like "We pay you X if your study about Y finds Z". I observed this mostly when it comes to studies about cannabis as there was a big push to discredit the plant as a valid medicine and an alternative to "regular" medication.

kortilla 6y ago
> I observed this mostly So you’re not only saying you’ve seen scientists take bribes, but that you’ve seen it on enough occasions to find patterns?! How many briberies have you observed? Didn’t you feel compelled to report them to the ethics committee?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- karlp 6y ago
  I think the OP is referring to negative studies involving cannabis that receives funding from opposing groups. Alternatively, you have all the suspect studies describing miraculous plant properties paid by food company that put them in yogurt or health supplements.
- logicallee 6y ago
  Your phrasing is really unfair to OP based on OP's phrasing! A bribe would be, "you just published x - we'll pay you y to publish a retraction" or if OP had said: "We pay you X if you publish Z", omitting any pretense of an actual study. Or if OP included scare quotes: We pay you X if your study about Y "finds" Z. To use an example not based on science, if Intel said, "we'll donate $1 billion to your university if you find a room temperature superconductor" nobody would interpret that as a bribe for you to publish fake results. Some financial incentive might be there to be corrupt, but a bribe it is not. The whole world isn't a corrupt wall street bank, and academia certainly isn't. Companies can give explicit or implicit incentives but that doesn't make those bribes. Plus, academics list the sources of their funding. To think it through even more. If Intel did communicate the above incentive to universities, then surely all research universities would devote very significant funds to researching room temperature superconductors. But would they publish other results, or even theoretical impossibility results (We show that under the standard model, it is impossible to ...) If it were a bribe, they would not, but clearly in practice they would. Likewise, if a cigarette company gives a similar incentive to show that cigarettes are good appetite suppresants and make you thinner, and somebody did the research and found that cigarettes reduce your inhibition and make you fatter on average, would they publish their results even though they'd get grants for the opposite results? I think they surely would still publish them. They wouldn't just put them in their drawer like a null result. So I think it is really unfair to call it a bribe, and your comment goes too far.
CJefferson 6y ago
I've never seen anyone accept an obvious offer like that, I'd be surprised if many do, as it would be the end of your career. On the other hand, someone can offer research funding every year and people can notice they happen to fund people who, in previous years, found results they were happy with. No-one ever has to publicly say anything.
- johnhenry 6y ago
  *Or the beginning of your career...
- Frost1x 6y ago
  A group I worked with used to get a lot of work in the fossil fuel industry. We mainly worked on safety training applications for workers in industry so it didn't bother me. What I can say is that there was an unspoken pressure to avoid lines of research we suspected may result in outcomes the industry sponsoring us may not be too happy about. So ultimately, outside of some safety applications, we had a huge selection bias in research we would accept so as not to upset the gravy train of funding that kept pouring in.
jariel 6y ago
"was a big push to discredit the plant " ? The pro cannabis industry is huge, and there are billions pouring into schemes and ideas for 'proving' the otherwise. The University of Saskatchewan had an entire lab (semi private, wing of the school), formerly used to research making oils etc. from what, transformed into a 100% cannabis research lab.
wongarsu 6y ago
I suspect usually it's just "We are a group about Z, we pay you X to study Y". It's implicitly clear that if your results aren't what they are looking for this might be the last grant you get from them. It's not necessary to coerce or bribe, you can just give people the right/wrong incentive.

kortilla 6y ago

> I observed this mostly So you’re not only saying you’ve seen scientists take bribes, but that you’ve seen it on enough occasions to find patterns?! How many briberies have you observed? Didn’t you feel compelled to report them to the ethics committee?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
karlp 6y ago
I think the OP is referring to negative studies involving cannabis that receives funding from opposing groups. Alternatively, you have all the suspect studies describing miraculous plant properties paid by food company that put them in yogurt or health supplements.
logicallee 6y ago
Your phrasing is really unfair to OP based on OP's phrasing! A bribe would be, "you just published x - we'll pay you y to publish a retraction" or if OP had said: "We pay you X if you publish Z", omitting any pretense of an actual study. Or if OP included scare quotes: We pay you X if your study about Y "finds" Z. To use an example not based on science, if Intel said, "we'll donate $1 billion to your university if you find a room temperature superconductor" nobody would interpret that as a bribe for you to publish fake results. Some financial incentive might be there to be corrupt, but a bribe it is not. The whole world isn't a corrupt wall street bank, and academia certainly isn't. Companies can give explicit or implicit incentives but that doesn't make those bribes. Plus, academics list the sources of their funding. To think it through even more. If Intel did communicate the above incentive to universities, then surely all research universities would devote very significant funds to researching room temperature superconductors. But would they publish other results, or even theoretical impossibility results (We show that under the standard model, it is impossible to ...) If it were a bribe, they would not, but clearly in practice they would. Likewise, if a cigarette company gives a similar incentive to show that cigarettes are good appetite suppresants and make you thinner, and somebody did the research and found that cigarettes reduce your inhibition and make you fatter on average, would they publish their results even though they'd get grants for the opposite results? I think they surely would still publish them. They wouldn't just put them in their drawer like a null result. So I think it is really unfair to call it a bribe, and your comment goes too far.

CJefferson 6y ago

I've never seen anyone accept an obvious offer like that, I'd be surprised if many do, as it would be the end of your career. On the other hand, someone can offer research funding every year and people can notice they happen to fund people who, in previous years, found results they were happy with. No-one ever has to publicly say anything.

johnhenry 6y ago
*Or the beginning of your career...
Frost1x 6y ago
A group I worked with used to get a lot of work in the fossil fuel industry. We mainly worked on safety training applications for workers in industry so it didn't bother me. What I can say is that there was an unspoken pressure to avoid lines of research we suspected may result in outcomes the industry sponsoring us may not be too happy about. So ultimately, outside of some safety applications, we had a huge selection bias in research we would accept so as not to upset the gravy train of funding that kept pouring in.

jariel 6y ago

"was a big push to discredit the plant " ? The pro cannabis industry is huge, and there are billions pouring into schemes and ideas for 'proving' the otherwise. The University of Saskatchewan had an entire lab (semi private, wing of the school), formerly used to research making oils etc. from what, transformed into a 100% cannabis research lab.

wongarsu 6y ago

I suspect usually it's just "We are a group about Z, we pay you X to study Y". It's implicitly clear that if your results aren't what they are looking for this might be the last grant you get from them. It's not necessary to coerce or bribe, you can just give people the right/wrong incentive.