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Hasn't scientific fraud always been an industry and we rely on signal to noise ratios to be good enough to get by? Alternatively, in times of high wealth inequ

Hasn't scientific fraud always been an industry and we rely on signal to noise ratios to be good enough to get by? Alternatively, in times of high wealth inequality are we putting a higher burden on our academics to survive, and forcing them to do more and more, thereby increasing the likelihood they will turn to cheating to survive?

AlexandrB 1y ago
The whole "publish or perish" paradigm has commodified scientific research. My theory is that the pre-WWI paradigm of academia being mainly for rich kids who could afford to devote their life to science did not scale, but it also had fewer issues with "making stuff up" since scientists were in it for the love of the game rather than making a living. I don't think we should go back to that model, but the MBA-inspired approach of treating "scientist" as a fungible role in a system and trying to apply metrics like citations to measure "impact" is doomed to fail in my opinion.
- d0odk 1y ago
  I directionally agree with you. But there are plenty of examples of scientists being extremely petty, political or egotistical further back in history. Newton and Leibniz. Gauss withholding publication of non-Euclidean geometry presumably due to fear of Kant. I wonder if there is any empirical analysis of what has historically funded/supported scientific work (private funding vs. academic systems). I also wonder whether a lone genius in it for the "love of the game" could make much progress in cutting edge science nowadays, given the cost of experiments and the specialization of fields. Really interesting food for thought.
  - fuzzfactor 1y ago
    You don't have to be a genius to make way more progress on the latest equipment compared to PhD's in their environment, with their constraints and encumberment, plus their survivor bias based on "dramatically" different things other than progress. You could even do it as a complete gentleman without ruffling any feathers at lower cost than most well-paid corporate workers waste, and get more done if you set your mind to it. Sometimes even in your spare time. So I definitely wouldn't sell the lone genius short. Could very well be an even better bet.
Hilift 1y ago
A cool new indicator is "tortured phrases". These are turning out to be a gold mine for detecting fraudulent papers. "In December 2023, a PubPeer user commented on 13 tortured phrases the Problematic Paper Screener had flagged in the article, such as the use of “Parkinson’s illness,” “Parkinson’s infection,” and “Parkinson’s sickness” rather than Parkinson’s disease. "“These typically result from an attempt to avoid plagiarism detection using a paraphrasing software,” the commenter wrote about the phases. “How come these incorrect wordings survived proofreading by the coauthors, editors, referees, copy editors, and typesetters?”" https://retractionwatch.com/2024/11/11/all-the-red-flags-scientific-reports-retracts-paper-sleuths-called-out-in-open-letter/ https://retractionwatch.com/2024/11/11/all-the-red-flags-sci...

AlexandrB 1y ago

The whole "publish or perish" paradigm has commodified scientific research. My theory is that the pre-WWI paradigm of academia being mainly for rich kids who could afford to devote their life to science did not scale, but it also had fewer issues with "making stuff up" since scientists were in it for the love of the game rather than making a living. I don't think we should go back to that model, but the MBA-inspired approach of treating "scientist" as a fungible role in a system and trying to apply metrics like citations to measure "impact" is doomed to fail in my opinion.

d0odk 1y ago
I directionally agree with you. But there are plenty of examples of scientists being extremely petty, political or egotistical further back in history. Newton and Leibniz. Gauss withholding publication of non-Euclidean geometry presumably due to fear of Kant. I wonder if there is any empirical analysis of what has historically funded/supported scientific work (private funding vs. academic systems). I also wonder whether a lone genius in it for the "love of the game" could make much progress in cutting edge science nowadays, given the cost of experiments and the specialization of fields. Really interesting food for thought.
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
  You don't have to be a genius to make way more progress on the latest equipment compared to PhD's in their environment, with their constraints and encumberment, plus their survivor bias based on "dramatically" different things other than progress. You could even do it as a complete gentleman without ruffling any feathers at lower cost than most well-paid corporate workers waste, and get more done if you set your mind to it. Sometimes even in your spare time. So I definitely wouldn't sell the lone genius short. Could very well be an even better bet.

Hilift 1y ago

A cool new indicator is "tortured phrases". These are turning out to be a gold mine for detecting fraudulent papers. "In December 2023, a PubPeer user commented on 13 tortured phrases the Problematic Paper Screener had flagged in the article, such as the use of “Parkinson’s illness,” “Parkinson’s infection,” and “Parkinson’s sickness” rather than Parkinson’s disease. "“These typically result from an attempt to avoid plagiarism detection using a paraphrasing software,” the commenter wrote about the phases. “How come these incorrect wordings survived proofreading by the coauthors, editors, referees, copy editors, and typesetters?”" https://retractionwatch.com/2024/11/11/all-the-red-flags-scientific-reports-retracts-paper-sleuths-called-out-in-open-letter/ https://retractionwatch.com/2024/11/11/all-the-red-flags-sci...