4 ms·

> The incentives to investigate and call out fraud are non-existent. In fact, the opposite is true: If you find something fishy in a paper, your mentor, colleag

> The incentives to investigate and call out fraud are non-existent. In fact, the opposite is true: If you find something fishy in a paper, your mentor, colleagues, and friends will most likely suggest that you keep quiet and move on (or as I have learned the hard way, they might even try to bully you into silence). I can’t help but wonder if these mentors are also guilty of fabricating data and don’t want to cause issues that might lead to people looking at their own work more closely.

odyssey7 2y ago
Interpersonal connections can matter more than results for one’s career. Spotting an influencer’s error risks closing important doors.
- OfCounsel 2y ago
  Looking too closely has zero upside and plenty of downside. If you’re wrong and the result was legitimate, you’ve developed a reputation as a pain in the ass. If you’re right, the researcher will say it was an honest mistake (maybe a clerical error) to absolve themselves modulo retraction, which happens all the time. Nothing of significance comes of it, but an “influencer” may well have other, above board, programs of research on which you could have collaborated and made a real name for yourselves.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    I'm a researcher and I'm heavily dependent on inputs from my students. If one of them is falsifying data, that's my entire career gone. I know the usual line is "no big deal, another University will just hire the PI" but I don't believe that for a second. Even if it somehow did turn out to be true, I'm going to uproot my family and go through hell because of something I could now avoid? There are crazy people in the world. But if someone comes to me and says "here is a thing that could end, or at least seriously screw up your career" I'm going to take them very, very seriously. Even if it is incredibly horrifying to contemplate.
  - MarcoZavala 2y ago
    [dead]
- roenxi 2y ago
  And the awkwardness that if said influencer is engaged in fraud then that means they have more free time, incentive and natural inclination to politic. They don't have the handicap of having to spend time worrying about solid research and they clearly care a lot about managing what other people think of them.
throwawaysleep 2y ago
I mean, have you ever seen things work out for a whistleblower? At best, they get some 15 minutes of praise. At worst, straight to jail. I don’t work anywhere near academia. I still wouldn’t blow the whistle or advise others to do so.
- watwut 2y ago
  Academic whistle-blower won't go to jail. Government ones do and big companies ones do.
  - fastball 2y ago
    Which company whistle-blower has gone to jail?
    - dmurray 2y ago
      The Libor bankers, for example [0]. Were they completely innocent? Nobody is completely innocent, Cardinal Richelieu knew that. But they were definitely whistleblowers who went to jail. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60561679 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60561679
  - otherme123 2y ago
    Your career is done. Academics tend to rule themselves: think peer review, but for everything. You apply for a grant, and you are in bad terms with the reviewers for some critics? You get nothing. The editors of the Journals are also scientists. Are you in bad terms with a friend of the editor? "Nice work, but it doesn't fit our journal", also let me send some emails to get sure you don't get published in first decile, or your paper gets slowed down for months. You deserve the Nobel prize, but you critisized the work of someone? You get nothing! Swedish chemist Arrhenius blocked the Nobel price for Mendeleev because the later make some valid scientific critics the former didn't like.
- tim333 2y ago
  I'm not sure if Elisabeth Bik is exactly a whistleblower but she's doing ok https://www.technologynetworks.com/biopharma/news/theres-fraud-in-science-a-new-fund-seeks-to-tackle-it-396262 https://www.technologynetworks.com/biopharma/news/theres-fra... >Bik’s venture into scientific sleuthing began as a hobby when she detected duplicated western blot images in a PhD thesis. Now full time.
jakobnissen 2y ago
There is no way that's true in my research group. We would - and do - call each other out on our mistakes at ever group meeting. Straight up fraud would not be tolerated. I think people are underestimatig the psychological impact of failing to act on fraud in your research. Once you've learned that you're a fraud and what you're doing is bullshit, it would be soul crushing to go to work every day. I have a feeling that non-academics on the Internet have an overly bleak view of the ethics in acamedia. I don't know why, but several online influencers really like to peddle the idea that we're all corrupt.
- nkurz 2y ago
  Upvoted for the optimism. And I presume it's just a typo, but "acamedia" is wonderfully evocative for cases where academic papers are to be written primarily to provide a foundation for future popularization and commercial use.
  - o11c 2y ago
    Hm, it looks like the Greek etymology is disputed (it was named after a place rather than with purpose). ake = silent heka ... in borrowing normally means "one hundred", but in Greek it's actually "he" (one) + "katon" (hundred), so "heka" doesn't mean anything. (eka- in chemistry is Sanskrit and unrelated) demos = district medius = middle in Latin; the Greek is mesos, which seems to maintain more of the explicit "between/among" sense (for which Latin has "inter")
- fsckboy 2y ago
  >Straight up fraud would not be tolerated. damn, you started off so hard-core and no-nonsense like seal team 6 had entered the research review arena, then your finishing blow to fraud was... it's soul-crushing to the fraudster?
  - vikramkr 2y ago
    No, to the team. Science is collaborative. If you learn that the results you are working with and building on are fraudulent, what's even the point? Trying to replicate that team members results with it never workong, starting new projects designed based off of fake data, continuing to tolerate and endorse that fraud by keeping quiet means the entire group's work becomes meaningless. Fraud infects all the research that references it and builds on it. Would you want to spend 5 years of your life futilely trying to build on your collaborators work if you know at the start that their data is fake?
Aurornis 2y ago
> I can’t help but wonder if these mentors are also guilty of fabricating data and don’t want to cause issues that might lead to people looking at their own work more closely. It's far more likely that they know whistleblowing creates far more pain than many people expect. People who build their reputations on top of lies tend to lash out when threatened. They know they can't afford to have their lies revealed, so they launch an all-out offensive to discredit, bully, and push out their accusers. I've seen it play out in the workplace a couple times now. Some people get downright vicious when they feel their reputation is at risk. I watched someone spend years trying to get another person fired simply because that person accidentally uncovered one of his lies. The person who discovered it wasn't even trying to do anything with the information, but the person who lied about it was so anxious about the fact that somebody knew that he started doing increasingly irrational and desperate things to push the other person out.
- nerdponx 2y ago
  Prisoner's dilemma. The one person who goes out on a limb gets punished, unless everyone around them does it too.

odyssey7 2y ago

Interpersonal connections can matter more than results for one’s career. Spotting an influencer’s error risks closing important doors.

OfCounsel 2y ago
Looking too closely has zero upside and plenty of downside. If you’re wrong and the result was legitimate, you’ve developed a reputation as a pain in the ass. If you’re right, the researcher will say it was an honest mistake (maybe a clerical error) to absolve themselves modulo retraction, which happens all the time. Nothing of significance comes of it, but an “influencer” may well have other, above board, programs of research on which you could have collaborated and made a real name for yourselves.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  I'm a researcher and I'm heavily dependent on inputs from my students. If one of them is falsifying data, that's my entire career gone. I know the usual line is "no big deal, another University will just hire the PI" but I don't believe that for a second. Even if it somehow did turn out to be true, I'm going to uproot my family and go through hell because of something I could now avoid? There are crazy people in the world. But if someone comes to me and says "here is a thing that could end, or at least seriously screw up your career" I'm going to take them very, very seriously. Even if it is incredibly horrifying to contemplate.
- MarcoZavala 2y ago
  [dead]
roenxi 2y ago
And the awkwardness that if said influencer is engaged in fraud then that means they have more free time, incentive and natural inclination to politic. They don't have the handicap of having to spend time worrying about solid research and they clearly care a lot about managing what other people think of them.

throwawaysleep 2y ago

I mean, have you ever seen things work out for a whistleblower? At best, they get some 15 minutes of praise. At worst, straight to jail. I don’t work anywhere near academia. I still wouldn’t blow the whistle or advise others to do so.

watwut 2y ago
Academic whistle-blower won't go to jail. Government ones do and big companies ones do.
- fastball 2y ago
  Which company whistle-blower has gone to jail?
  - dmurray 2y ago
    The Libor bankers, for example [0]. Were they completely innocent? Nobody is completely innocent, Cardinal Richelieu knew that. But they were definitely whistleblowers who went to jail. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60561679 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60561679
- otherme123 2y ago
  Your career is done. Academics tend to rule themselves: think peer review, but for everything. You apply for a grant, and you are in bad terms with the reviewers for some critics? You get nothing. The editors of the Journals are also scientists. Are you in bad terms with a friend of the editor? "Nice work, but it doesn't fit our journal", also let me send some emails to get sure you don't get published in first decile, or your paper gets slowed down for months. You deserve the Nobel prize, but you critisized the work of someone? You get nothing! Swedish chemist Arrhenius blocked the Nobel price for Mendeleev because the later make some valid scientific critics the former didn't like.
tim333 2y ago
I'm not sure if Elisabeth Bik is exactly a whistleblower but she's doing ok https://www.technologynetworks.com/biopharma/news/theres-fraud-in-science-a-new-fund-seeks-to-tackle-it-396262 https://www.technologynetworks.com/biopharma/news/theres-fra... >Bik’s venture into scientific sleuthing began as a hobby when she detected duplicated western blot images in a PhD thesis. Now full time.

jakobnissen 2y ago

There is no way that's true in my research group. We would - and do - call each other out on our mistakes at ever group meeting. Straight up fraud would not be tolerated. I think people are underestimatig the psychological impact of failing to act on fraud in your research. Once you've learned that you're a fraud and what you're doing is bullshit, it would be soul crushing to go to work every day. I have a feeling that non-academics on the Internet have an overly bleak view of the ethics in acamedia. I don't know why, but several online influencers really like to peddle the idea that we're all corrupt.

nkurz 2y ago
Upvoted for the optimism. And I presume it's just a typo, but "acamedia" is wonderfully evocative for cases where academic papers are to be written primarily to provide a foundation for future popularization and commercial use.
- o11c 2y ago
  Hm, it looks like the Greek etymology is disputed (it was named after a place rather than with purpose). ake = silent heka ... in borrowing normally means "one hundred", but in Greek it's actually "he" (one) + "katon" (hundred), so "heka" doesn't mean anything. (eka- in chemistry is Sanskrit and unrelated) demos = district medius = middle in Latin; the Greek is mesos, which seems to maintain more of the explicit "between/among" sense (for which Latin has "inter")
fsckboy 2y ago
>Straight up fraud would not be tolerated. damn, you started off so hard-core and no-nonsense like seal team 6 had entered the research review arena, then your finishing blow to fraud was... it's soul-crushing to the fraudster?
- vikramkr 2y ago
  No, to the team. Science is collaborative. If you learn that the results you are working with and building on are fraudulent, what's even the point? Trying to replicate that team members results with it never workong, starting new projects designed based off of fake data, continuing to tolerate and endorse that fraud by keeping quiet means the entire group's work becomes meaningless. Fraud infects all the research that references it and builds on it. Would you want to spend 5 years of your life futilely trying to build on your collaborators work if you know at the start that their data is fake?

Aurornis 2y ago

> I can’t help but wonder if these mentors are also guilty of fabricating data and don’t want to cause issues that might lead to people looking at their own work more closely. It's far more likely that they know whistleblowing creates far more pain than many people expect. People who build their reputations on top of lies tend to lash out when threatened. They know they can't afford to have their lies revealed, so they launch an all-out offensive to discredit, bully, and push out their accusers. I've seen it play out in the workplace a couple times now. Some people get downright vicious when they feel their reputation is at risk. I watched someone spend years trying to get another person fired simply because that person accidentally uncovered one of his lies. The person who discovered it wasn't even trying to do anything with the information, but the person who lied about it was so anxious about the fact that somebody knew that he started doing increasingly irrational and desperate things to push the other person out.

nerdponx 2y ago
Prisoner's dilemma. The one person who goes out on a limb gets punished, unless everyone around them does it too.