5 ms·
Changing some details form obvious reasons: a friend was a postdoc in biology at a top tier UK university. Her boss was a hotshot professor, tons of revolutiona
by rich_sasha 2y ago
Changing some details form obvious reasons: a friend was a postdoc in biology at a top tier UK university. Her boss was a hotshot professor, tons of revolutionary publications under his belt.
Her first job when he hired her was to hammer into shape a paper one of his PhD students was writing. Normal stuff, right? Adding literature, polishing off rough edges etc. Except the PhD student seemed really uneasy about the paper, kept talking about issues with the data that needed fixing. At face value, all was great - nice small p-values, great effect sizes etc. Eventually it transpired the PhD student was doctoring the data (these were the issues), was deeply uncomfortable with it, but also understood this is what my friend will be helping her with.
At this point my friend goes to the professor to inform him, nicely but firmly, of academic fraud. The prof comes down on my friend like a ton of bricks: who do you think you are, what do you know, I am the hotshot superstar and you are a no-name. All is well with the research and if you press on with the ridiculous accusations, she will be ruined in academia.
Well, my friend is a feisty one. She complained of bullying to the university, as an employment thing. The university was desperate not to touch it and in fact encouraged her to lie low, but she wouldn't. The whole thing kept escalating in really nasty ways, but eventually wound its way to an employment tribunal. Notably, at this point this isn't even about the academic misconduct, it's about the professor bullying his employee.
At the eleventh hour, the prof quits his job and goes to another, also top tier university. Since he is no longer my friend's boss, the case is dropped - no boss, no case. Still, however, no academic misconduct case! My friend, against all advice, wrote a letter to the new university, informing them verbatim of her findings. No response, to this day. The guy is still a top honcho there.
Whereas my friend finished her postdoc, didn't get another academic position and got an industry job, where frankly, she seems happier.
- shermantanktop 2y agoThe very last line of your story is why the “Market for Lemons” paper (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons) remains so powerful. If fraudsters cannot be found or punished, it is logical to assume that everyone in the field is a fraud.
- genewitch 2y agoThis sort of thing can be applied to other things as well. When there's a prestige or financial incentive, one can never be sure of the veracity. See literally all mainstream media. Everything is underwritten - the writing, if you zoom in, says "our advertisers approve this segment" So how then, can one know that they're getting actual facts or good reporting?
- tuatoru 2y agoFind the blockheads. (From Samuel Johnson's "no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money".
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoWhat is non-mainstream?
- pjc50 2y agoThe problem is that people (correctly) identify problems in mainstream media, then immediately imprint on a youtuber, talk radio host, or literal enemy propagandist who they decide has the actual truth.
- LittleTimothy 2y agoNon mainstream are they guys who are accidentally being directly paid by Russia...
- genewitch 2y agosorry for the late reply. This right here is non-mainstream. this site. I don't have any recommendations for, you know, other sources of information. I think it behooves us all to consider who underwrote the segments of news we're ingesting. By all means, listen to all the news you like. An easy question is "what stories am i not hearing because <advertiser> doesn't like that story?"
- mettamage 2y agoTake this comment as an extra upvote. The thing is: we need to figure out a way to make accountability to become more of a thing. Peer review isn't enough (clearly). I suspect that people should create a journal that has more strict requirements than simply peer review. I think for many forms of science, one should provide an R script with the data they used to get the results. Yes, there are still ways to fabricate stuff but it'll be more transparent. Another thing is: there needs to be an incentive for reproducible findings Unfortunately, I don't know how to go about this
- lazide 2y agoThe issue is, who is going to prefer that paper over the existing ones? You’ll have higher costs, and will you have higher returns?
- snackbroken 2y agoThe people providing science funding ought to be interested in their money being spent on science. If the methods of a study are not described in sufficient detail as to enable replication, the study is simply not science. Of course, doing science requires more diligence than doing pseudoscience. That's kind of the point.
- lazide 2y agoAnd I think that is really the crux. I don’t see it getting better for awhile either. We need to get a lot more cynicism in society to counteract the fraud.
- me-vs-cat 2y agoHow many of the people providing the funding are interested in science, and how many simply want an outcome which furthers their ends?
- raverbashing 2y agoHonestly? Peer-review sucks and I'm not convinced it's all fine and good with it neither Public review is better (but also worse in important ways) A possible improvement would be for reviews to be semi-public but (author) anonymous, also where the reviewers would have some choice in selecting papers
- prof-dr-ir 2y agoMaybe your friend could reach out to people like Elisabeth Bik, who blogs here: https://scienceintegritydigest.com/ https://scienceintegritydigest.com/ Alternatively, maybe the people behind the Data Colada blog can help: https://datacolada.org/ https://datacolada.org/
- phillipharris 2y agoIf she has nothing to lose now, why not release the story publicly?
- throwawaymaths 2y agoshe in a position to lose time, emotional stability, etc. such a pain in the ass for what? shes already been abused and trampled by the system. give her a break for not jumping at the chance to say "more, please"
- phillipharris 2y agoBecause it could save other people from the same abuser
- torben-friis 2y agoI can't help but feel a similarity to the entertainment industry's dynamics that sparked the meToo movement. The issues are different of course, but there are common patterns of prestigious abusers, victims risking ostracism, etc. I wonder if we'll end up seeing a similar movement in academia were we spend a few months watching big names taken down from their pedestal every few days.
- pjc50 2y agoAcademia also has, or has had, a metoo movement over actual sexual harassment and bullying. And of course the two are linked; if you can bully a young female researcher into not complaining about sexual harassment, you can bully her into complicity with your fraud. Attempts to address this are probably going to get swept away by the anti-DEI crackdown in the US. After all, not harassing your juniors is inclusivity.
- DontchaKnowit 2y agoI think thats a stretch. You think pro-DEI types are less likely to bully or harass? Cause Ive personally seen the exact opposite (people accusing people of racism as a means of retribution, or to advance their status, people in charge of DEI programs bullying or politicising their role, etc)
- educasean 2y agoI don't know if people who will readily accuse others of racism as a tool of retribution can be considered genuinely serious about their DEI endorsement. Now with the winds changing directions under Trump administration 2.0, the same people are probably already denouncing their past and jumping onto the "DEI is bad" bandwagon.
- DontchaKnowit 2y agono true scotsmen, eh