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From the article -- "...after researcher Jan Hendrik Schön at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, was discovered to have falsified data. In Schön’s case, and

From the article -- "...after researcher Jan Hendrik Schön at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, was discovered to have falsified data. In Schön’s case, and in his own experience, Muller says, 'people who fake data tend not to do it just once'." I think this is the "money shot" here, but I admit I am biased :-). I got into a heated debate years ago over the "harshness" of treating students who cheated on an exam. The details are not particularly important but they were obscured by the fact that they involved 'foreign' students at an American university who were expelled (and lost their student Visas) after they were found to have cheated on an exam. The outrage was how these foreign students were "singled out" while "American students doing the same thing were just scolded". There wasn't enough information available to address whether or not it was discriminatory but my assertion that all students who cheat should be expelled was rebuked as overly harsh and met with calls of "In that case Universities will have to expel their entire student bodies!" My controversial (if you would believe the responses) take is that these sorts of "minor" infractions against cultural expectations are the basis for corruption. Whether it is telling lies to cover inconvenient (and perhaps inconsequential) truths or cheating to pass an evaluation for which one had not invested the time and effort to prepare. Habituating this behavior creates a stain on all future actions.

cycomanic 3y ago
The serious question that arises from your argument is, should we apply this stance to all parts of life. Should drivers loose their licence indefinitely if they drive to fast or park wrong? Should we chop of the hand of thieves (or maybe forbid them to enter any stores)?
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  It depends, better comparison would be the test drive where you acquire your license (sry, can't find the word, not a native speaker). Since it's about exams, right? I'd say, at school tolerance is appropriate, but at university deliberate and definite cheating justifies at least being recorded like a triple-fail at that particular exam IMO. Which in Europe, AfAIK would mean being "expelled" from your main course if it's a mandatory exam. Not sure if all the details are right but I am all for harsh penalties for certain kinds or cheating in high-stakes situations. With "high stakes", I particularly mean things like university exams or scientifc publications, not every violation of the ethical and/or formal rule sets of society in general. Another example would be a physician who was caught doing something that intentionally and significantly violates the rule set for physicians, endangering his patients: it's not negligience, it's malicious.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  The difference is a college degree is a cert issued by the state. It's not unfair for part of the cert is the presumption that the person is honest. And to deny cert to people known to be dishonest. Disclosure. I never cheated in college and have a hunch that people trying to make excuses for cheaters are cheaters themselves.
  - mock-possum 3y ago
    Yeah same, it’s crazy to me that everyone would so casually make excuses for exposed liars.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  As a driver I make mistakes, which should be punished less harshly than outright freely chosen actions. I certainly expect more than losing my license if I run you over deliberately. As for thieves aren’t they normally banned from that store or chain?
notimetorelax 3y ago
Harsh rules don’t guarantee fairness. If enforced unevenly they create even more ground for corruption. While your view is not wrong it’s idealistic.
fluoridation 3y ago
No, corruption arises when people lose faith in the system and its rules. Using harsh punishments doesn't work, if some people can pull strings with acquaintances to get themselves out of trouble. A system where every infraction has a minor punishment can work without corruption, if everyone believes everyone else will act honestly.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Is kicking someone out of academia because they show themselves to be dishonest overly harsh though?
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    Wrecking someone's life because of a single mistake is overly harsh, I'd say.
sfink 3y ago
But the cultural expectation has shifted. AFAICT, it is now expected that people will cheat as a matter of course. That may have happened because of past leniency, but at this point expelling students is shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. If 10% of students cheat, you can hold the line through punishment. If 80% of students cheat, you have a systemic problem, and beating students is only going to produce better cheaters. The whole structure is now set up to strongly disadvantage those who don't cheat, and once that happens, the decision to cheat ceases to be a moral one. I went to school during the last century. I did not cheat. Cheating was already pretty common, I knew of plenty of people who did cheat, but the norm (as I understood it) was still to not cheat. If I were go to school today, I'm not sure what I would do. It would depend partly on the stakes. It's like being an honest politician. You can feel good and pat yourself on the back, but you'll never get elected. (Ok, "honest" may not be the best word for it. Someone who measures the effects of various things and governs accordingly rather than by how popular and marketable positions are, and refuses to make deals that go against principles.)
- burnished 3y ago
  Disagree. I went to university within the last five years - cheating was rampant but tended to produce students who seriously struggled to keep up with coursework in their third and fourth year. I did not cheat and was typically one of the top performers in my courses. However we may be operating under different assumptions; there was no assumption of grade curving (it happened a few times when an exam was a little over juiced, but it pulled people into a passing grade instead of pushing people into a failing one). On reflection it sounds like you are anticipating a curve designed to flunk a certain portion of students. I'm not sure if one or the other is the 'default' experience these days.
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  In the 2010’s, cheating was commonplace and socially accepted. People were still being caught and harshly punished, but nobody would snitch if they saw you up to something. Snitching carried much more social stigma than cheating on an exam or whatever. What didn’t help was these stupid false positive prone plagiarism detectors like turnitin which would assign an arbitrary “score” that would get you dinged for copying - even if it was original work.
feoren 3y ago
> In that case Universities will have to expel their entire student bodies! Liars think everyone lies; cheaters think everyone cheats. I suspect these were university administrators, which is a job that I can definitely see attracting know-nothing losers who cheated their way through college. So of course they think everyone else did too. I was never aware of even a single instance of cheating among anyone I knew at college (although I was not exactly an inquisitor about it either). I suspect the rate of cheating is much lower than these admins think it is, and also support expelling everyone who is conclusively caught cheating. Conclusively is the big caveat, though: we'd have to be very, very sure. This means a lot more than running their essay through a "plagiarism checker", "AI checker", or some other lazy approach.

cycomanic 3y ago

The serious question that arises from your argument is, should we apply this stance to all parts of life. Should drivers loose their licence indefinitely if they drive to fast or park wrong? Should we chop of the hand of thieves (or maybe forbid them to enter any stores)?

moritzwarhier 3y ago
It depends, better comparison would be the test drive where you acquire your license (sry, can't find the word, not a native speaker). Since it's about exams, right? I'd say, at school tolerance is appropriate, but at university deliberate and definite cheating justifies at least being recorded like a triple-fail at that particular exam IMO. Which in Europe, AfAIK would mean being "expelled" from your main course if it's a mandatory exam. Not sure if all the details are right but I am all for harsh penalties for certain kinds or cheating in high-stakes situations. With "high stakes", I particularly mean things like university exams or scientifc publications, not every violation of the ethical and/or formal rule sets of society in general. Another example would be a physician who was caught doing something that intentionally and significantly violates the rule set for physicians, endangering his patients: it's not negligience, it's malicious.
Gibbon1 3y ago
The difference is a college degree is a cert issued by the state. It's not unfair for part of the cert is the presumption that the person is honest. And to deny cert to people known to be dishonest. Disclosure. I never cheated in college and have a hunch that people trying to make excuses for cheaters are cheaters themselves.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  Yeah same, it’s crazy to me that everyone would so casually make excuses for exposed liars.
tomjen3 3y ago
As a driver I make mistakes, which should be punished less harshly than outright freely chosen actions. I certainly expect more than losing my license if I run you over deliberately. As for thieves aren’t they normally banned from that store or chain?

notimetorelax 3y ago

Harsh rules don’t guarantee fairness. If enforced unevenly they create even more ground for corruption. While your view is not wrong it’s idealistic.

fluoridation 3y ago

No, corruption arises when people lose faith in the system and its rules. Using harsh punishments doesn't work, if some people can pull strings with acquaintances to get themselves out of trouble. A system where every infraction has a minor punishment can work without corruption, if everyone believes everyone else will act honestly.

mock-possum 3y ago
Is kicking someone out of academia because they show themselves to be dishonest overly harsh though?
- fluoridation 3y ago
  Wrecking someone's life because of a single mistake is overly harsh, I'd say.

sfink 3y ago

But the cultural expectation has shifted. AFAICT, it is now expected that people will cheat as a matter of course. That may have happened because of past leniency, but at this point expelling students is shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. If 10% of students cheat, you can hold the line through punishment. If 80% of students cheat, you have a systemic problem, and beating students is only going to produce better cheaters. The whole structure is now set up to strongly disadvantage those who don't cheat, and once that happens, the decision to cheat ceases to be a moral one. I went to school during the last century. I did not cheat. Cheating was already pretty common, I knew of plenty of people who did cheat, but the norm (as I understood it) was still to not cheat. If I were go to school today, I'm not sure what I would do. It would depend partly on the stakes. It's like being an honest politician. You can feel good and pat yourself on the back, but you'll never get elected. (Ok, "honest" may not be the best word for it. Someone who measures the effects of various things and governs accordingly rather than by how popular and marketable positions are, and refuses to make deals that go against principles.)

burnished 3y ago
Disagree. I went to university within the last five years - cheating was rampant but tended to produce students who seriously struggled to keep up with coursework in their third and fourth year. I did not cheat and was typically one of the top performers in my courses. However we may be operating under different assumptions; there was no assumption of grade curving (it happened a few times when an exam was a little over juiced, but it pulled people into a passing grade instead of pushing people into a failing one). On reflection it sounds like you are anticipating a curve designed to flunk a certain portion of students. I'm not sure if one or the other is the 'default' experience these days.
fullspectrumdev 3y ago
In the 2010’s, cheating was commonplace and socially accepted. People were still being caught and harshly punished, but nobody would snitch if they saw you up to something. Snitching carried much more social stigma than cheating on an exam or whatever. What didn’t help was these stupid false positive prone plagiarism detectors like turnitin which would assign an arbitrary “score” that would get you dinged for copying - even if it was original work.

feoren 3y ago

> In that case Universities will have to expel their entire student bodies! Liars think everyone lies; cheaters think everyone cheats. I suspect these were university administrators, which is a job that I can definitely see attracting know-nothing losers who cheated their way through college. So of course they think everyone else did too. I was never aware of even a single instance of cheating among anyone I knew at college (although I was not exactly an inquisitor about it either). I suspect the rate of cheating is much lower than these admins think it is, and also support expelling everyone who is conclusively caught cheating. Conclusively is the big caveat, though: we'd have to be very, very sure. This means a lot more than running their essay through a "plagiarism checker", "AI checker", or some other lazy approach.