4 ms·

The PI was asleep at the wheel. When my father worked in a lab he knew who was fabricating data amongst his peers in the other adjacent labs not just his collea

The PI was asleep at the wheel. When my father worked in a lab he knew who was fabricating data amongst his peers in the other adjacent labs not just his colleagues in the same labs. There was no was no way stop them but he knew and it made for frequent dinner conversation.

EnigmaFlare 3y ago
Why no way to stop them? Couldn't he have reported it to the university? Sounds like he was complicit if he knew and did nothing.
- sgt101 3y ago
  That's all very well, but whistleblowers can find themselves out of a job without getting any result if they aren't in the right place at the right time. What if the OP's dad was of a minority ethnicity in a tenuous position in a racist environment? What if the family were poor with a sick child? What if he was an only parent? What if not everyone has the courage to do the right thing all the time because they are just ordinary people and not the star of a movie? What if they are scared and we don't judge them for that?
  - EnigmaFlare 3y ago
    "Because I like money" is how corrupt practices generally sustain themselves. That doesn't mean the participants aren't complicit.
    - sgt101 3y ago
      There's a big difference between a corporate executive with (say) $2m in the bank that keeps their head down and lets corruption ride, and a college professor with a family that keeps his beak out of things. A really big difference.
      - EnigmaFlare 3y ago
        You seem to be trying to justify academic fraud as ethically acceptable for poor people to do. Is that right? Or are you just explaining how people could be motivated to participate in it despite it being unethical?
- nothercastle 3y ago
  There is almost no protection for whistle blowers in university. If you report fraud you get kicked out of the lab and blackballed and have to restart your phd if someone even wants to take you in. I would never recommend whistle blowing to anyone under those circumstances. It’s career suicide and may leave you personally devastated as well. The system is designed to protect bad actors.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Additionally, if you report outside the university, the univerisity is tainted because word of the investigation will spread farther than word of the results. So the choices are report internally and likely get retaliated against, report externally and suffer similar reputational damage, or keep quiet and hope someone with power notices and takes action.
    - sgt101 3y ago
      For sure you will be labelled as a trouble maker, the worst thing is that there is a lot to hide out there and people are very ruthless about hiding it!
sgt101 3y ago
PI's have a lot to do, she admits that she wasn't focusing enough on the work that was being developed. I think you are making a good point though (she does as well), science as we currently understand it works on the basis of trust. This is because it's highly competitive and highly compelling. Compelling in the sense that people believe that their contributions may make significant contributions to wider society and other people, competitive in that the winners get the spoils. I think we need to moderate both of these pressures. We need to stop the valourization of potentially high impact work - until it is high impact, and we need to emphasize the long value chains and problems with exploitation as well. A good example is the recent talk from John Burke about Quantum Computing and Quantum Clocks [1]. In terms of to the winners the spoils we have to develop a funding system that recognizes that people who make a single significant impact on a field early in their career are no more likely than anyone else to make further impacts. Indeed the more I hang around the edges of the research community the more I am convinced that there is a very weak correlation between any prior success and any future impact if you account for the funding that early winners receive. I feel that there are very many truly outstanding but unlucky researchers who are culled after 3 post-docs. I think that population is basically the same in capability as the folks who get tenure. We need to stop selecting so randomly - it's not working and it has bad effects (see this article). In the past the way things worked was a "good fellows" club - where connections and patronage were what counted. In some parts of the world (Europe and Asia) this still has a massive effect. I think it's dissipated in North America and the UK but what's replaced it (savage competition) isn't really better - it just suits the political biases of the people funding the system. [1] https://www.hpcwire.com/2023/12/19/dod-takes-a-long-view-of-quantum-computing/ https://www.hpcwire.com/2023/12/19/dod-takes-a-long-view-of-...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  > PI's have a lot to do, she admits that she wasn't focusing enough on the work that was being developed. Her name was on the papers and she presented the work at conferences. If she was not really involved in the work, then it was scientific fraud to have presented it as if it were hers. If you were so out of the loop as to not realize that no experiments were being performed and the data was being fabricated wholesale, then it is fraudulent to put her name on the scientific paper as an author and to present as an author. She is not conducting research but is a renting out a paper mill. That kind of behavior needs to be strictly condemned

EnigmaFlare 3y ago

Why no way to stop them? Couldn't he have reported it to the university? Sounds like he was complicit if he knew and did nothing.

sgt101 3y ago
That's all very well, but whistleblowers can find themselves out of a job without getting any result if they aren't in the right place at the right time. What if the OP's dad was of a minority ethnicity in a tenuous position in a racist environment? What if the family were poor with a sick child? What if he was an only parent? What if not everyone has the courage to do the right thing all the time because they are just ordinary people and not the star of a movie? What if they are scared and we don't judge them for that?
- EnigmaFlare 3y ago
  "Because I like money" is how corrupt practices generally sustain themselves. That doesn't mean the participants aren't complicit.
  - sgt101 3y ago
    There's a big difference between a corporate executive with (say) $2m in the bank that keeps their head down and lets corruption ride, and a college professor with a family that keeps his beak out of things. A really big difference.
    - EnigmaFlare 3y ago
      You seem to be trying to justify academic fraud as ethically acceptable for poor people to do. Is that right? Or are you just explaining how people could be motivated to participate in it despite it being unethical?
nothercastle 3y ago
There is almost no protection for whistle blowers in university. If you report fraud you get kicked out of the lab and blackballed and have to restart your phd if someone even wants to take you in. I would never recommend whistle blowing to anyone under those circumstances. It’s career suicide and may leave you personally devastated as well. The system is designed to protect bad actors.
- toast0 3y ago
  Additionally, if you report outside the university, the univerisity is tainted because word of the investigation will spread farther than word of the results. So the choices are report internally and likely get retaliated against, report externally and suffer similar reputational damage, or keep quiet and hope someone with power notices and takes action.
  - sgt101 3y ago
    For sure you will be labelled as a trouble maker, the worst thing is that there is a lot to hide out there and people are very ruthless about hiding it!

sgt101 3y ago

PI's have a lot to do, she admits that she wasn't focusing enough on the work that was being developed. I think you are making a good point though (she does as well), science as we currently understand it works on the basis of trust. This is because it's highly competitive and highly compelling. Compelling in the sense that people believe that their contributions may make significant contributions to wider society and other people, competitive in that the winners get the spoils. I think we need to moderate both of these pressures. We need to stop the valourization of potentially high impact work - until it is high impact, and we need to emphasize the long value chains and problems with exploitation as well. A good example is the recent talk from John Burke about Quantum Computing and Quantum Clocks [1]. In terms of to the winners the spoils we have to develop a funding system that recognizes that people who make a single significant impact on a field early in their career are no more likely than anyone else to make further impacts. Indeed the more I hang around the edges of the research community the more I am convinced that there is a very weak correlation between any prior success and any future impact if you account for the funding that early winners receive. I feel that there are very many truly outstanding but unlucky researchers who are culled after 3 post-docs. I think that population is basically the same in capability as the folks who get tenure. We need to stop selecting so randomly - it's not working and it has bad effects (see this article). In the past the way things worked was a "good fellows" club - where connections and patronage were what counted. In some parts of the world (Europe and Asia) this still has a massive effect. I think it's dissipated in North America and the UK but what's replaced it (savage competition) isn't really better - it just suits the political biases of the people funding the system. [1] https://www.hpcwire.com/2023/12/19/dod-takes-a-long-view-of-quantum-computing/ https://www.hpcwire.com/2023/12/19/dod-takes-a-long-view-of-...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> PI's have a lot to do, she admits that she wasn't focusing enough on the work that was being developed. Her name was on the papers and she presented the work at conferences. If she was not really involved in the work, then it was scientific fraud to have presented it as if it were hers. If you were so out of the loop as to not realize that no experiments were being performed and the data was being fabricated wholesale, then it is fraudulent to put her name on the scientific paper as an author and to present as an author. She is not conducting research but is a renting out a paper mill. That kind of behavior needs to be strictly condemned