3 ms·

Dont worry about it. It becomes a trap and many of them loose their minds as them dig themselves into deeper and deeper holes not knowing what else to do. Sourc

by op03 6y ago

Dont worry about it. It becomes a trap and many of them loose their minds as them dig themselves into deeper and deeper holes not knowing what else to do. Source: shrink in the family at a univ counselling center. At the end of the day they are misguided people. Even though there is a high price, their function is to train the survival skills of the honest folk who rise up the food chain. And dont have any doubt they have survived these type of people (usually thanks to the right networks and mentors), have developed their own tricks and exist in large numbers.

dnautics 6y ago
I don't particularly care about him per se (though i'm sorry to burst your model of society, from what I hear over my residual science network, I'm pretty sure he's oblivious or doesn't care), I'm a bay area dev, and I'm making enough money and have made good investments in friend's startups that my only regret is not having started sooner. Hopefully I'll be able to cash out with enough to do my own biotech, so I'm just biding my time for now. But what does concern me is that this is endemic in chemistry. It's not talked about much outside.... Which makes me wonder if other sciences are just as bad, "we just don't hear it". The incentive structure and nearly nonexistent self-reporting accountabilily is just the same; and meanwhile everything operates under a general social deification of the sciences.
- op03 6y ago
  We hear it all the time. Its an ancient story. The history of science is full of these stories. Misguided/driven/ambitious people are always looking for shortcuts and they will find them. Its like dealing with mosquitos, cockroaches, weeds, software bugs and cancer. It never ends.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I think the point of GP's story is that this isn't just one or two bad apples here and there, but it's endemic in that domain - and most likely in others too (I'm leaning to believe that; it's not the first story like this I've read in recent years). Being an endemic problem means you have to switch your assumptions; when reading a random scientific paper, you're no longer thinking, "this is probably right, but I must be wary of mistakes" - you're thinking, "this is most likely utter bullshit, but maybe there's some salvageable insight in it".
    - dnautics 6y ago
      it's endemic in biology, and it's endemic in chemistry (I had feet in both sides). The sentiment you wrote in the last sentence is exactly what I feel whenever I read a paper, hit it on the nail. The crazy thing, is that the honest scientists are working at middling university. It is worse the higher up you go. I have had the opportunity to work in a upper-midrange research university [time-] sandwiched between two very high profile institutes. The institutes were way more corrupt. Like inviting the lab and the DARPA PM to hors d'oeuvres and cocktails at the institute leader's private mansion type of stuff (it turned out that that DARPA PM also had some wierd scientific overinterpretation skeletons / PI railroading the whistleblower stuff in her closet, and for a stint was the CTO of a microsample blood diagnostics company, I can't make this shit up, I guess after Theranos it got too wierd, she's now the CEO of another biotech startup -- how TF do people like this get VC money, and yet I can't get people to raise for some buddies with a growth industry company, and had to make the entire first investment myself?). Of course working at a upper-midrange university sucks for other reasons. Especially at state universities, the red tape is astounding. And support staff is truly incompetent. Orders would fail to get placed or would arrive and disappear (not even theft, just incompetence) all the time.
      - Radim 6y ago
        While the "host" (people who pay, often with minimal decision power over their resources) turns a blind eye, "parasites" (cheaters who profit disproportionately) proliferate. Is that really so surprising? When somebody else foots the bill, it's feast time! To be clear, I'm with you. Also a PhD-turned-industry, for much the same reasons. But I realize what you describe is a completely rational strategy. The options always come down to: 1) Try not to be a host – if you have the wherewithal 2) Try to be a parasite – if you have the stomach 3) Suck it up & stay salty – otherwise. You can call it a balance, equilibrium, natural order of things – whatever helps you sleep at night. Take your pick and then choose appropriate means. Romantic resolutions and wishful thinking – kinda like Atlas Shrugged solution for option 1) – rarely work.
    - hobofan 6y ago
      I think once you've seen a few papers in high-tier journals that turn out to be bullshit once you start to dig a bit deeper, there is not other choice than to adopt this harsh stance on random scientific papers. Especially if you want to do work with that expands on findings on other papers that roughly look good "trust but verify" seems to be the way to go. I've only recently dipped by toes into academic life in a lab, but it very much seems that PIs generally know which are the bad apples. E.g. when discussing whether some data is good enough to be publishable the PIs reaction was something along the lines of "If we were FAMOUS_LAB_NAME it would be, but we want to do it in a way that holds up". So it seems like there are at least some barriers to how incompetence would hurt the whole field. I'm also surprised that there is no mention of the PI in GP's story. As it's a paper published by the lab, it's not just on the grad student "to do the right thing", but even more on the more senior scientist, whose reputation is also at stake.
ALittleLight 6y ago
The problem isn't that such people are getting away with unearned good feelings and so the fact that some may feel bad later isn't a solution or a reason not to worry. The problem is that they are wasting scientific resources (e.g. the time of the careful intern trying to reproduce flawed results), polluting research by publishing misleading findings, and discouraging legitimate research.
- JesseMReeves 6y ago
  The problem is that there is no working system in place that makes such abuses of scientific truth visible. We would need to get away from inefficient communication via publications and set a system in place that tracks findings in detail, and whether they can be replicated first. But there is no willingness to do so after the US of A deeply harmed the scientific mission and academics by introducing infuriatingly dumb economical incentives into science.
  - AgentMatt 6y ago
    > But there is no willingness to do so after the US of A deeply harmed the scientific mission and academics by introducing infuriatingly dumb economical incentives into science. What are you referring to here?
wesleywt 6y ago
No they don't. In my experience they become professors or get hired by top tier companies like Roche.
foobarian 6y ago
Reminds me of the protagonist in movie Fargo played by William H. Macy.

by op03 6y ago

dnautics 6y ago

I don't particularly care about him per se (though i'm sorry to burst your model of society, from what I hear over my residual science network, I'm pretty sure he's oblivious or doesn't care), I'm a bay area dev, and I'm making enough money and have made good investments in friend's startups that my only regret is not having started sooner. Hopefully I'll be able to cash out with enough to do my own biotech, so I'm just biding my time for now. But what does concern me is that this is endemic in chemistry. It's not talked about much outside.... Which makes me wonder if other sciences are just as bad, "we just don't hear it". The incentive structure and nearly nonexistent self-reporting accountabilily is just the same; and meanwhile everything operates under a general social deification of the sciences.

op03 6y ago
We hear it all the time. Its an ancient story. The history of science is full of these stories. Misguided/driven/ambitious people are always looking for shortcuts and they will find them. Its like dealing with mosquitos, cockroaches, weeds, software bugs and cancer. It never ends.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  I think the point of GP's story is that this isn't just one or two bad apples here and there, but it's endemic in that domain - and most likely in others too (I'm leaning to believe that; it's not the first story like this I've read in recent years). Being an endemic problem means you have to switch your assumptions; when reading a random scientific paper, you're no longer thinking, "this is probably right, but I must be wary of mistakes" - you're thinking, "this is most likely utter bullshit, but maybe there's some salvageable insight in it".
  - dnautics 6y ago
    it's endemic in biology, and it's endemic in chemistry (I had feet in both sides). The sentiment you wrote in the last sentence is exactly what I feel whenever I read a paper, hit it on the nail. The crazy thing, is that the honest scientists are working at middling university. It is worse the higher up you go. I have had the opportunity to work in a upper-midrange research university [time-] sandwiched between two very high profile institutes. The institutes were way more corrupt. Like inviting the lab and the DARPA PM to hors d'oeuvres and cocktails at the institute leader's private mansion type of stuff (it turned out that that DARPA PM also had some wierd scientific overinterpretation skeletons / PI railroading the whistleblower stuff in her closet, and for a stint was the CTO of a microsample blood diagnostics company, I can't make this shit up, I guess after Theranos it got too wierd, she's now the CEO of another biotech startup -- how TF do people like this get VC money, and yet I can't get people to raise for some buddies with a growth industry company, and had to make the entire first investment myself?). Of course working at a upper-midrange university sucks for other reasons. Especially at state universities, the red tape is astounding. And support staff is truly incompetent. Orders would fail to get placed or would arrive and disappear (not even theft, just incompetence) all the time.
    - Radim 6y ago
      While the "host" (people who pay, often with minimal decision power over their resources) turns a blind eye, "parasites" (cheaters who profit disproportionately) proliferate. Is that really so surprising? When somebody else foots the bill, it's feast time! To be clear, I'm with you. Also a PhD-turned-industry, for much the same reasons. But I realize what you describe is a completely rational strategy. The options always come down to: 1) Try not to be a host – if you have the wherewithal 2) Try to be a parasite – if you have the stomach 3) Suck it up & stay salty – otherwise. You can call it a balance, equilibrium, natural order of things – whatever helps you sleep at night. Take your pick and then choose appropriate means. Romantic resolutions and wishful thinking – kinda like Atlas Shrugged solution for option 1) – rarely work.
  - hobofan 6y ago
    I think once you've seen a few papers in high-tier journals that turn out to be bullshit once you start to dig a bit deeper, there is not other choice than to adopt this harsh stance on random scientific papers. Especially if you want to do work with that expands on findings on other papers that roughly look good "trust but verify" seems to be the way to go. I've only recently dipped by toes into academic life in a lab, but it very much seems that PIs generally know which are the bad apples. E.g. when discussing whether some data is good enough to be publishable the PIs reaction was something along the lines of "If we were FAMOUS_LAB_NAME it would be, but we want to do it in a way that holds up". So it seems like there are at least some barriers to how incompetence would hurt the whole field. I'm also surprised that there is no mention of the PI in GP's story. As it's a paper published by the lab, it's not just on the grad student "to do the right thing", but even more on the more senior scientist, whose reputation is also at stake.

ALittleLight 6y ago

The problem isn't that such people are getting away with unearned good feelings and so the fact that some may feel bad later isn't a solution or a reason not to worry. The problem is that they are wasting scientific resources (e.g. the time of the careful intern trying to reproduce flawed results), polluting research by publishing misleading findings, and discouraging legitimate research.

JesseMReeves 6y ago
The problem is that there is no working system in place that makes such abuses of scientific truth visible. We would need to get away from inefficient communication via publications and set a system in place that tracks findings in detail, and whether they can be replicated first. But there is no willingness to do so after the US of A deeply harmed the scientific mission and academics by introducing infuriatingly dumb economical incentives into science.
- AgentMatt 6y ago
  > But there is no willingness to do so after the US of A deeply harmed the scientific mission and academics by introducing infuriatingly dumb economical incentives into science. What are you referring to here?

wesleywt 6y ago

No they don't. In my experience they become professors or get hired by top tier companies like Roche.

foobarian 6y ago

Reminds me of the protagonist in movie Fargo played by William H. Macy.