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People are deadset on the fraud allegrations arguing that one must be incredibly stupid to do this. It stands to reason then, that they haven't. I feel they ar

People are deadset on the fraud allegrations arguing that one must be incredibly stupid to do this. It stands to reason then, that they haven't. I feel they are simply lazy-on-the-paperwork tinkerers. I can understand since academic publishing seems to be such an ordeal.

dkqmduems 4y ago
There is a reason why people do not use their 'nonstandard' way of subtracting noise.
- davidgrenier 4y ago
  Probably, I'm not familiar with the domain. I'm suggesting their data and publishing practice could be dogshit while their process might still wield a room-temp superconductor, in which case it would be a little unfair to conclude they are fraudsters.
  - dkqmduems 4y ago
    stupidity or fraud, their results should not be trusted until successfully and independently reproduced.
  - mgsouth 4y ago
    If you take two independent source datasets, A and B, and combine them (add, subtract, whatever) to produce C, then C is correlated to A and B, but A and B are uncorrelated. So in the paper, there are two datasets D and E, and a third F. The noise in D and E are uncorrelated and the noise in F is correlated [edit: to D and E]. Clearly F is the result of combining D and E. The problem is that D is labeled "raw", E is labeled "final, clean result", and F is labeled "background". Thats... pretty damning. They took raw measurements, added them to a desired result, and claimed the result was "background". Edit: to my mind, the biggest problem here isn't that an exciting new physics discovery is reversed. It's that so many people show little regard for truth. I'm not speaking to the parent of this post so much as to entire community. In the APS article it says that Rochester > "'determined that there was no evidence that supported the concerns.' But the university has not made the remit of the investigations public and has not provided any rationale for the investigations or details on how they reached their conclusions." In regards to clearly plagarized sections in his PhD thesis Rochester also said > “Dr. Dias has taken responsibility for these errors and is working with his thesis advisor…to amend the thesis.” Even one of the scientists who uncovered problems with the first 'discovery': > “'Still, I don’t want to believe [the allegations] because it’s too serious,' Eremets says. He would prefer the field simply forget about the irreproducible CSH result and move on."
andrewflnr 4y ago
It stands to reason that it happens rarely, but it clearly does happen occasionally. Scientific fraud exists. Probably a lot of it never even gets caught. Unfortunately you can't trust the logic "if it's that stupid, no one would do it". The reason we invented the word "stupid" is that people are stupid.
feoren 4y ago
People who commit fraud at this level usually have a psychosis akin to narcissism. Their brain is dysfunctional and they are literally compelled to lie bigger and bigger -- they are addicted to lying. Do not look into your own brain and think "I'd never do that, therefore they wouldn't either"; you can't extrapolate from a healthy brain to a clinically compulsive liar / narcissist. Once these things start to unravel, you find a seemingly endless stream of lies these people have woven into their lives from their earliest years. We're already beginning to see this with the 2013 thesis being plagiarized. This person's entire life is a lie. It's a psychosis.

dkqmduems 4y ago

There is a reason why people do not use their 'nonstandard' way of subtracting noise.

davidgrenier 4y ago
Probably, I'm not familiar with the domain. I'm suggesting their data and publishing practice could be dogshit while their process might still wield a room-temp superconductor, in which case it would be a little unfair to conclude they are fraudsters.
- dkqmduems 4y ago
  stupidity or fraud, their results should not be trusted until successfully and independently reproduced.
- mgsouth 4y ago
  If you take two independent source datasets, A and B, and combine them (add, subtract, whatever) to produce C, then C is correlated to A and B, but A and B are uncorrelated. So in the paper, there are two datasets D and E, and a third F. The noise in D and E are uncorrelated and the noise in F is correlated [edit: to D and E]. Clearly F is the result of combining D and E. The problem is that D is labeled "raw", E is labeled "final, clean result", and F is labeled "background". Thats... pretty damning. They took raw measurements, added them to a desired result, and claimed the result was "background". Edit: to my mind, the biggest problem here isn't that an exciting new physics discovery is reversed. It's that so many people show little regard for truth. I'm not speaking to the parent of this post so much as to entire community. In the APS article it says that Rochester > "'determined that there was no evidence that supported the concerns.' But the university has not made the remit of the investigations public and has not provided any rationale for the investigations or details on how they reached their conclusions." In regards to clearly plagarized sections in his PhD thesis Rochester also said > “Dr. Dias has taken responsibility for these errors and is working with his thesis advisor…to amend the thesis.” Even one of the scientists who uncovered problems with the first 'discovery': > “'Still, I don’t want to believe [the allegations] because it’s too serious,' Eremets says. He would prefer the field simply forget about the irreproducible CSH result and move on."

andrewflnr 4y ago

It stands to reason that it happens rarely, but it clearly does happen occasionally. Scientific fraud exists. Probably a lot of it never even gets caught. Unfortunately you can't trust the logic "if it's that stupid, no one would do it". The reason we invented the word "stupid" is that people are stupid.

feoren 4y ago

People who commit fraud at this level usually have a psychosis akin to narcissism. Their brain is dysfunctional and they are literally compelled to lie bigger and bigger -- they are addicted to lying. Do not look into your own brain and think "I'd never do that, therefore they wouldn't either"; you can't extrapolate from a healthy brain to a clinically compulsive liar / narcissist. Once these things start to unravel, you find a seemingly endless stream of lies these people have woven into their lives from their earliest years. We're already beginning to see this with the 2013 thesis being plagiarized. This person's entire life is a lie. It's a psychosis.