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Why can we charge other professions with fraud but not researchers? I'm sure people in other professions might worry about being wrongfully prosecuted too, but

Why can we charge other professions with fraud but not researchers? I'm sure people in other professions might worry about being wrongfully prosecuted too, but that doesn't stop us. Even doctors get criminal charges when they deliberately do something wrong. You can be pretty sure that virtually every doctor has made honest mistakes, but they don't all prevent dishonest doctors from being brought to justice.

CamperBob2 3y ago
There are objective standards in other professions. The thing about research is, by definition, whatever you're doing is not part of an established profession yet. Obviously that doesn't apply in setting like drug development where standards do exist, as defined by the best currently available treatments. But if someone is working on something like psychological studies where replicability is the exception rather than the rule, or on exotic tech where only one experimental facility might exist, or on substances or effects that exist only under weird conditions, it's not always that easy (or that safe) to accuse them of lying. Even when you're pretty sure they are.
- kelipso 3y ago
  Agreed. There are plenty of stories in physics where researchers reported some effect which was found later to be due to an error setting up the experiment. Are they supposed to face fraud charges because of this? Researchers will just quit and go work in the industry or something. And there are plenty of fields where you have different interpretations of the same data (see the entire field of economics, also plenty in physics and other fields). Should the people who espoused ether theory be sued for fraud? It'll be a huge mess because doing research is by definition doing something unprecedented.
- persnickety 3y ago
  I have a hunch that the not everything you do as a researcher is novel. A part of it is, like you mention, new by definition. But there's also the old and established parts, like statistics, parts of the experimental setup, methodology, reporting data accurately (or at all). This is plenty enough to have objective standards for. A lot of fraud is not in making up experimental results, but instead misreporting the data and drawing unsupported conclusions.
  - dbsmith83 3y ago
    Exactly! There are some obvious things too like: don't copy and paste tiny bits of an electrophoresis gel and put it into another image to make it look like it was the same result. Sylvain Lesné comes to mind here. Last I checked, this jackass still has a job, too
burnished 3y ago
If your contention is fraud then good news - we already have the laws and authorities required to pursue it. Nothing new required.
Nevermark 3y ago
(IANAL) Fraud can often be prosecuted as a civil crime, in which case there needs to be an aggrieved party with credible evidence of damages, no inhibitions about making a splash, and the time and money resources to sue. I suspect educational institutions don't want to be seen as organizations that sue their own researchers. Same with paper publishers. And same for grant issuers. Downstream researchers? Do they have the time, the money? ability to show direct damages whose recompense would be worth all the effort? Students affected perhaps could, but only if the effect was very direct and they had the resources. And desire to be known as someone who sues their professor. The damage is usually so diffuse. There is no one party with all the reasons to sue. I have no idea what the process would be for criminal prosecution, but the diffuse impact may be an inhibitory factor there too.

CamperBob2 3y ago

There are objective standards in other professions. The thing about research is, by definition, whatever you're doing is not part of an established profession yet. Obviously that doesn't apply in setting like drug development where standards do exist, as defined by the best currently available treatments. But if someone is working on something like psychological studies where replicability is the exception rather than the rule, or on exotic tech where only one experimental facility might exist, or on substances or effects that exist only under weird conditions, it's not always that easy (or that safe) to accuse them of lying. Even when you're pretty sure they are.

kelipso 3y ago
Agreed. There are plenty of stories in physics where researchers reported some effect which was found later to be due to an error setting up the experiment. Are they supposed to face fraud charges because of this? Researchers will just quit and go work in the industry or something. And there are plenty of fields where you have different interpretations of the same data (see the entire field of economics, also plenty in physics and other fields). Should the people who espoused ether theory be sued for fraud? It'll be a huge mess because doing research is by definition doing something unprecedented.
persnickety 3y ago
I have a hunch that the not everything you do as a researcher is novel. A part of it is, like you mention, new by definition. But there's also the old and established parts, like statistics, parts of the experimental setup, methodology, reporting data accurately (or at all). This is plenty enough to have objective standards for. A lot of fraud is not in making up experimental results, but instead misreporting the data and drawing unsupported conclusions.
- dbsmith83 3y ago
  Exactly! There are some obvious things too like: don't copy and paste tiny bits of an electrophoresis gel and put it into another image to make it look like it was the same result. Sylvain Lesné comes to mind here. Last I checked, this jackass still has a job, too

burnished 3y ago

If your contention is fraud then good news - we already have the laws and authorities required to pursue it. Nothing new required.

Nevermark 3y ago

(IANAL) Fraud can often be prosecuted as a civil crime, in which case there needs to be an aggrieved party with credible evidence of damages, no inhibitions about making a splash, and the time and money resources to sue. I suspect educational institutions don't want to be seen as organizations that sue their own researchers. Same with paper publishers. And same for grant issuers. Downstream researchers? Do they have the time, the money? ability to show direct damages whose recompense would be worth all the effort? Students affected perhaps could, but only if the effect was very direct and they had the resources. And desire to be known as someone who sues their professor. The damage is usually so diffuse. There is no one party with all the reasons to sue. I have no idea what the process would be for criminal prosecution, but the diffuse impact may be an inhibitory factor there too.