6 ms·

This is the same Marik behind efforts to treat COVID with Ivermectin. The paper he co-authored about treating COVID was found to have major issues and was retra

by pen2l 5y ago

This is the same Marik behind efforts to treat COVID with Ivermectin. The paper he co-authored about treating COVID was found to have major issues and was retracted. As for this particular paper about the Vitamin C trial (which hasn't been retracted yet): numerous other groups tried replicating it and none could. Millions and millions and millions of dollars, countless hours wasted on conducting controlled trials all because of this guy's fraud. My two takeaways: 1) Kudos to Sheldrick, we absolutely need more people like him. We need statisticians to pick apart data in papers and see if it smells funny. This should have been caught earlier. 2) There should be a higher price to pay for this kind of fraud. For the confusion and mistrust that ensued, for the money and human capital that was wasted, he needs to be behind bars for a long, long time.

rmbyrro 5y ago
I don't think it was wasted. It's well invested capital and time to find out whether something is true or not That's how science work. No matter what we do to discourage fraud, we'll always invest tons of capital and time to find and filter it out.
- linspace 5y ago
  It would be better that independent studies tried to detect errors, not fraud. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between both but of there is a track record of fraud no reputable journal should accept more papers from that source. Edit: As I re-read my comment I worry because research should not really depend on "prestige", it should be based on cold facts. On the other hand I don't see any other way to deal with malicious actors.
  - rmbyrro 5y ago
    There will always be fraud and we will always need to invest in trying to reproduce everything in order to sort them out. It's absurd to think there will be a way to know which studies need reproduction or not. The whole purpose of reproducing is to find out which ones are true and which are bogus
- bilekas 5y ago
  > It's well invested capital and time to find out whether something is true or not But it was known not to be true, and so people were sent under false pretenses to go and reproduce and verify it. That is far from well invested.
  - rmbyrro 5y ago
    Expecting all scientists to be honest is wishful thinking. We will always need to invest in finding error and fraud, no matter how we perceive scientists honesty. The moment we stop doing these investment, we're doomed.
    - EricE 5y ago
      Science is never settled? Unpossible!
- himinlomax 5y ago
  That's like saying money spent fighting arson is well invested because you have extinguish accidental fires sometimes anyway.
  - waffleiron 5y ago
    Closely related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
    - rmbyrro 5y ago
      I don't think it's related. We need to reproduce every single study, including the fraudulent ones. Gosh, ESPECIALLY the fraudulent ones. But we can't possibly know in advance which are which. That's the whole purpose of trying to reproduce. Without reproduction efforts, scientific papers are of no value, as we can't trust them. In this sense, a paper without reproduction effort is not a "window" in the analogy. Only after reproduction efforts it becomes a window. So saying it's a waste to try reproducing an article is just absurd. It's like saying it's a waste to produce the "window" in the first place because a kid might break it in the future (in case of the paper, that we might figure out the paper was fraudulent). It's still valuable to find out a paper was fraudulent. It builds trust in the whole scientific endeavor.
      - _Nat_ 5y ago
        Then how do you trust the replication-studies? Just keep replicating them, too? The overall process assumes trustworthiness. The better that assumption holds, the better science performs.
        EricE 5y ago
        I don't think many serious scientists would consider assumptions a valuable part of the scientific method.
        5y ago
csunbird 5y ago
I feel like there should be criminal charges, as the treatments and their side effects have affected people and robbed them of proper care. The amount of people affected by this is humongous.
- ai_ja_nai 5y ago
  I respectfully disagree: public shaming should be enough. After all, we have a scientific community for this exact reason: we can tell frauds, or blatant mistakes if we want to feel charitable, by examining them collectively. And that serves as an immunity system against these cases. No other vengeanceful punishment is really necessary. Also, if we really are fond of consequences, frauds carry over the price of having to confront, for future publishing, with a scientific community that has grown a bias against the frauder; and the latter will have to regain trust if he/she wants to publish again. The criminal charges should be for those who use unproven scientific results to endorse their own foul agenda.
  - catgary 5y ago
    I don’t know, it seems like the consequences of fraud change significantly once someone has stepped into the realm of medical research. Publishing fraudulent research seems like it is, at the very least, medical malpractice and should affect the author’s ability to practice medicine.
  - csunbird 5y ago
    The thing is, the impact of this fraud is not simply monetary damage or wasted time of researchers, the impact is lives lost or permanent damages done to affected patients health and well being. The consequences are quite different.
  - hnfong 5y ago
    It's not vengeanceful punishment, it's detriment. If a system allowed me to publish fraudulent research or publish bad research recklessly, with the only consequence being "public shaming" (which is sometimes not really consequential if one has the right connections to the right people), what's to prevent me (and everyone else) from doing it over and over again? TBH from a legal perspective knowingly publishing false information for personal gain is already fraud. You're arguing that authorities should stay away because academia should somehow have immunity? That's a very disturbing line of thought.
david_draco 5y ago
> 2) There should be a higher price to pay for this kind of fraud. At the moment, University incentives are to protect the prestige and not for honesty. There should also be a University list of shame, based on author affil of papers accused of fraud. The trouble and defense will be that any rando can accuse a paper of fraud, and instead one should use finalized decisions (such as retractions). That would cause delays and not lead to any resolution in many cases, and I doubt that the number of papers false accused of fraud based on any substantial statistical analysis is large. Karma would help. One could then keep track of people who falsely accused papers of fraud in the past, and correctly pointed out papers which were later retracted, and then weigh the University shame list based on that.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  > There should also be a University list of shame, based on > author affil of papers accused of fraud. The ad-hominen attack is generally considered a form of fallacy. And many significant scientific discoveries were discovered by then-considered-quacks That said, this particular author is egregious and I'm sure his infamy will precede his name in future papers.
  - phone8675309 5y ago
    Anyone who fabricates data forfeits their right to be taken seriously every again.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      That's why I said that this particular author is egregious.
- amelius 5y ago
  > Karma would help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

by pen2l 5y ago

rmbyrro 5y ago

I don't think it was wasted. It's well invested capital and time to find out whether something is true or not That's how science work. No matter what we do to discourage fraud, we'll always invest tons of capital and time to find and filter it out.

linspace 5y ago
It would be better that independent studies tried to detect errors, not fraud. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between both but of there is a track record of fraud no reputable journal should accept more papers from that source. Edit: As I re-read my comment I worry because research should not really depend on "prestige", it should be based on cold facts. On the other hand I don't see any other way to deal with malicious actors.
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  There will always be fraud and we will always need to invest in trying to reproduce everything in order to sort them out. It's absurd to think there will be a way to know which studies need reproduction or not. The whole purpose of reproducing is to find out which ones are true and which are bogus
bilekas 5y ago
> It's well invested capital and time to find out whether something is true or not But it was known not to be true, and so people were sent under false pretenses to go and reproduce and verify it. That is far from well invested.
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  Expecting all scientists to be honest is wishful thinking. We will always need to invest in finding error and fraud, no matter how we perceive scientists honesty. The moment we stop doing these investment, we're doomed.
  - EricE 5y ago
    Science is never settled? Unpossible!
himinlomax 5y ago
That's like saying money spent fighting arson is well invested because you have extinguish accidental fires sometimes anyway.
- waffleiron 5y ago
  Closely related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
  - rmbyrro 5y ago
    I don't think it's related. We need to reproduce every single study, including the fraudulent ones. Gosh, ESPECIALLY the fraudulent ones. But we can't possibly know in advance which are which. That's the whole purpose of trying to reproduce. Without reproduction efforts, scientific papers are of no value, as we can't trust them. In this sense, a paper without reproduction effort is not a "window" in the analogy. Only after reproduction efforts it becomes a window. So saying it's a waste to try reproducing an article is just absurd. It's like saying it's a waste to produce the "window" in the first place because a kid might break it in the future (in case of the paper, that we might figure out the paper was fraudulent). It's still valuable to find out a paper was fraudulent. It builds trust in the whole scientific endeavor.
    - _Nat_ 5y ago
      Then how do you trust the replication-studies? Just keep replicating them, too? The overall process assumes trustworthiness. The better that assumption holds, the better science performs.
      - EricE 5y ago
        I don't think many serious scientists would consider assumptions a valuable part of the scientific method.
        5y ago

csunbird 5y ago

I feel like there should be criminal charges, as the treatments and their side effects have affected people and robbed them of proper care. The amount of people affected by this is humongous.

ai_ja_nai 5y ago
I respectfully disagree: public shaming should be enough. After all, we have a scientific community for this exact reason: we can tell frauds, or blatant mistakes if we want to feel charitable, by examining them collectively. And that serves as an immunity system against these cases. No other vengeanceful punishment is really necessary. Also, if we really are fond of consequences, frauds carry over the price of having to confront, for future publishing, with a scientific community that has grown a bias against the frauder; and the latter will have to regain trust if he/she wants to publish again. The criminal charges should be for those who use unproven scientific results to endorse their own foul agenda.
- catgary 5y ago
  I don’t know, it seems like the consequences of fraud change significantly once someone has stepped into the realm of medical research. Publishing fraudulent research seems like it is, at the very least, medical malpractice and should affect the author’s ability to practice medicine.
- csunbird 5y ago
  The thing is, the impact of this fraud is not simply monetary damage or wasted time of researchers, the impact is lives lost or permanent damages done to affected patients health and well being. The consequences are quite different.
- hnfong 5y ago
  It's not vengeanceful punishment, it's detriment. If a system allowed me to publish fraudulent research or publish bad research recklessly, with the only consequence being "public shaming" (which is sometimes not really consequential if one has the right connections to the right people), what's to prevent me (and everyone else) from doing it over and over again? TBH from a legal perspective knowingly publishing false information for personal gain is already fraud. You're arguing that authorities should stay away because academia should somehow have immunity? That's a very disturbing line of thought.

david_draco 5y ago

> 2) There should be a higher price to pay for this kind of fraud. At the moment, University incentives are to protect the prestige and not for honesty. There should also be a University list of shame, based on author affil of papers accused of fraud. The trouble and defense will be that any rando can accuse a paper of fraud, and instead one should use finalized decisions (such as retractions). That would cause delays and not lead to any resolution in many cases, and I doubt that the number of papers false accused of fraud based on any substantial statistical analysis is large. Karma would help. One could then keep track of people who falsely accused papers of fraud in the past, and correctly pointed out papers which were later retracted, and then weigh the University shame list based on that.

dotancohen 5y ago
> There should also be a University list of shame, based on > author affil of papers accused of fraud. The ad-hominen attack is generally considered a form of fallacy. And many significant scientific discoveries were discovered by then-considered-quacks That said, this particular author is egregious and I'm sure his infamy will precede his name in future papers.
- phone8675309 5y ago
  Anyone who fabricates data forfeits their right to be taken seriously every again.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    That's why I said that this particular author is egregious.
amelius 5y ago
> Karma would help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law