6 ms·

Say 1% of papers are fraudulent and 10% have serious errors. Now assume it is 10x easier to prove fraud than to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that an error w

by codex 14y ago

Say 1% of papers are fraudulent and 10% have serious errors. Now assume it is 10x easier to prove fraud than to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that an error was made. The result is that 50% of retractions are due to fraud, but still only 1% of all papers are fraudulent.

lostlogin 14y ago
Surely it would be easier to find error than to prove fraud. I feel I am missing something that is obvious...
- opminion 14y ago
  Perhaps the way to see this is to ask not what's "easy to find" but what's "most likely to move the case on". If you are a journal editor and find in your hands a note saying that paper X was fraudulent and has to be retracted, and another note that says paper Y had a mistake and has to be retracted, you would assign a higher priority to retracting paper X.
Alex3917 14y ago
The percent of papers that are fraudulent is probably more like 95+% if you count: - Papers where the authors fabricate data - Papers where bad data is hidden - Papers with named authors who didn't contribute to the research. (This alone is ~30% of all papers in medical journals.) - Papers with conflicts of interest that weren't reported. - Papers with improper usage of statistics. - Papers where the results and conclusions don't match the data. - Papers where the results / conclusion aren't epistemologically justified for other reasons. - Papers that weren't published/written because they showed negative results. - Papers that don't follow the methodological best practices for their given area of research. - Papers that incorrectly summarize previous research. - Papers that rely on flawed assumptions. - Papers that purposely ask the wrong question(s) in order to mislead the reader. - Papers that are intellectually dishonest in some other way. Basically if you want to know the percentage of research that is truly fraudulent when you use a more expansive definition, 95% is probably the lower bound for many if not most academic fields.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  That's a persuasive argument. But as a research paper, you would probably rate it as fraudulent by your own criterion. Where did that number '95%' come from? I suspect you made it up. Still, disregarding the irony, a good point.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    "Where did that number '95%' come from? I suspect you made it up." I don't think there is any research that has a single group of raters look at all of these categories at once, but there is a lot of research that looks at them separately. E.g. as I mentioned, "According to a study published in JAMA, 11 percent of the articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals are written by 'ghost authors.' (And 19 percent of the articles named 'honorary authors' who had not contributed enough to the research and writing to justify being listed as authors.)" That's up to 30% of all papers that are fraudulent right off the bat. Because many of these categories have been looked at separately it's not hard to figure out that the total for all research has to be at least 95%. Also, if you look at what percentage of papers can't be replicated: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528826.000-is-medical-science-built-on-shaky-foundations.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528826.000-is-medica... It's clear that the vast majority of research seems to be just made up out of thin air to begin with. And the percentage of research that can be replicated but that is fraudulent in some other way is similarly high. What it comes down to is that much if not most of modern science is basically just a giant make-work program for pseudo-intellectuals that's designed to produce marketing propaganda for corporations and prevent political unrest.
    - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
      ...and a lot more anecdotal 'evidence'. That article for instance - seems to be a guy with an axe to grind - he's founder of the Science Exchange, a web company with services to sell. By writing a scare story on irreproducible results hes drumming up business. How does that distinguish him from Amgen etc? I'm not trying to be mean, just mentioning its very easy to write opinion that appears as science and gets misinterpreted or given too much weight. The posting about the Decline Effect says it better.

by codex 14y ago

lostlogin 14y ago

Surely it would be easier to find error than to prove fraud. I feel I am missing something that is obvious...

opminion 14y ago
Perhaps the way to see this is to ask not what's "easy to find" but what's "most likely to move the case on". If you are a journal editor and find in your hands a note saying that paper X was fraudulent and has to be retracted, and another note that says paper Y had a mistake and has to be retracted, you would assign a higher priority to retracting paper X.

Alex3917 14y ago

The percent of papers that are fraudulent is probably more like 95+% if you count: - Papers where the authors fabricate data - Papers where bad data is hidden - Papers with named authors who didn't contribute to the research. (This alone is ~30% of all papers in medical journals.) - Papers with conflicts of interest that weren't reported. - Papers with improper usage of statistics. - Papers where the results and conclusions don't match the data. - Papers where the results / conclusion aren't epistemologically justified for other reasons. - Papers that weren't published/written because they showed negative results. - Papers that don't follow the methodological best practices for their given area of research. - Papers that incorrectly summarize previous research. - Papers that rely on flawed assumptions. - Papers that purposely ask the wrong question(s) in order to mislead the reader. - Papers that are intellectually dishonest in some other way. Basically if you want to know the percentage of research that is truly fraudulent when you use a more expansive definition, 95% is probably the lower bound for many if not most academic fields.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
That's a persuasive argument. But as a research paper, you would probably rate it as fraudulent by your own criterion. Where did that number '95%' come from? I suspect you made it up. Still, disregarding the irony, a good point.
- Alex3917 14y ago
  "Where did that number '95%' come from? I suspect you made it up." I don't think there is any research that has a single group of raters look at all of these categories at once, but there is a lot of research that looks at them separately. E.g. as I mentioned, "According to a study published in JAMA, 11 percent of the articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals are written by 'ghost authors.' (And 19 percent of the articles named 'honorary authors' who had not contributed enough to the research and writing to justify being listed as authors.)" That's up to 30% of all papers that are fraudulent right off the bat. Because many of these categories have been looked at separately it's not hard to figure out that the total for all research has to be at least 95%. Also, if you look at what percentage of papers can't be replicated: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528826.000-is-medical-science-built-on-shaky-foundations.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528826.000-is-medica... It's clear that the vast majority of research seems to be just made up out of thin air to begin with. And the percentage of research that can be replicated but that is fraudulent in some other way is similarly high. What it comes down to is that much if not most of modern science is basically just a giant make-work program for pseudo-intellectuals that's designed to produce marketing propaganda for corporations and prevent political unrest.
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    ...and a lot more anecdotal 'evidence'. That article for instance - seems to be a guy with an axe to grind - he's founder of the Science Exchange, a web company with services to sell. By writing a scare story on irreproducible results hes drumming up business. How does that distinguish him from Amgen etc? I'm not trying to be mean, just mentioning its very easy to write opinion that appears as science and gets misinterpreted or given too much weight. The posting about the Decline Effect says it better.