Recent scandals like Hwang Woo-Suk’s fake stem-cell lines or Jon Sudbø’s made-up cancer trials have dramatically demonstrated that fraudulent research is very easy to publish, even in the most prestigious journals. The media and many scientists tend to explain away these cases as pathological deviations of a few “bad apples.” Common sense and increasing evidence, however, suggest that these could be just the tip of the iceberg, because fraud and other more subtle forms of misconduct might be relatively frequent. The actual numbers, however, are a matter of great controversy.
Estimates based on indirect data (for example, official retractions of scientific papers or random data audits) have produced largely discrepant results. Therefore, many researchers have asked scientists directly, with surveys conducted in different countries and disciplines. However, they have used different methods and asked different questions, so their results also appeared inconclusive.
To make these surveys comparable, the meta-analysis focused on behaviours that actually distort scientific knowledge (excluding data on plagiarism and other kinds of malpractice) and extracted the frequency of scientists who recalled having committed a particular behaviour at least once, or who knew a colleague who did.
On average, across the surveys, around 2% of scientists admitted they had “fabricated” (made up), “falsified” or “altered” data to “improve the outcome” at least once, and up to 34% admitted to other questionable research practices including “failing to present data that contradict one’s own previous research” and “dropping observations or data points from analyses based on a gut feeling that they were inaccurate.”
In surveys that asked about the behaviour of colleagues, 14% knew someone who had fabricated, falsified or altered data, and up to 72% knew someone who had committed other questionable research practices.
For some value of scientist.
It’s the same story no matter what you are talking about. If there are humans involved it cannot be purely objective. People means politics.
Yeah, but wait a minute, SaskHab, surely it is
possible to be both human and ethical, isn’t it?
Or am I not human? That would be interesting.
It would be interesting were you not human and would you let anyone know this if you yourself knew? You’re right, I’m writing off those that subscribe to the altruistic notion of letting the numbers speak for themselves. My education has involved participating in too many psychology studies.
If I were not human would I let anyone know?
Probably not. Although, I say that as a human.
Look, I tried to resign, turns out, there’s no way.
/*sarc
B-b-but…they’re peer reviewed!
sarc/*
The funding is political and to get more funding your results have to comply with the funding regimen and to help manipulate the public.
Try to get funding disproving Global Warming.
Science, scientists and research are truly getting a bad name and the people in the chase of pure science must be really pissed at the thought of their credibility is being sacrificed on the alter of political correctness and mass manipulation.
It’s going to come down to the cry wolf scenario, something really bad is going to come down the pipe, and everyone is going to ignore it because of Chicken Little fatigue.
As long as I can remember this area in Eastern Ontario has been 2500-2700 heat units.
A seed salesman friend of mine now tells me that the maps have been “revised” and now we are 2900 heat units. I can tell you if you planted 2900 heat unit corn around here you’d get a combine plugged with wet snot come harvest as it would never mature in time before frost.
Global warming makes the new heat unit chart true?
Bullsh*t.
The “means” now justifies the “end”.
I guess this explains the studies “disproving” global warming. Thanks!
Speaking of settled science, I would like to request some Christmas music for tonights SDA LNR. To compliment all the snow on my roof on june 6th. Seasons greetings from Calgary.
au contraire Eric.
That substantiates the fact that we are having a darn cold June, so the h**l with Al Gore’s ‘studies’
Hey Eric, if you now have some extra heat units, could we maybe cap you at 2500, and you trade me here in southern Alberta the 400 units you shouldn’t have to use if you stick to your old corn, because here at 4500 feet where the crops and garden have just sprouted, we have 10 inches of snow! I have no idea how I will pay you Eric, because cattle prices have been so low for so long because of that other boogieman BSE, and now on June 6, I have to start my bale tractor to feed bales to the cows because of that other boogieman, Global Warming. Please tell the CBC there in Ontario, and I will tell our stupid govt. here in Alberta that we need to trade these heat units from that great ball of fire in the sky, instead of carbon sequestration. and Suzukis bulls..t.
Having worked as a scientist ( in a field that really had no – outside the field – political correctness), I have to say that, the line between falsifying( or excessive selectivity), and necessary & proper filtering of data can get pretty fuzzy, and if you combine that with a strong desire to get another grant, get published, get tenure, etc… even a saint would be tempted to be, cough, somewhat selective.
It doesn’t even have to be explicit (I’m goin to force this #%! to work) in intent. Self delusion is a marvelous thing.
(For those of you who haven’t done it, lots of real world experiments return crappy, “noise” (outlier) filled data that you very properly have to get quite selective with to pick out the pearls of real useful information from – and in my field that usually lead to more focussed experiments to attempt to cut down the noise. I can’t imagine what non-controlled experiments – like measuring weather – are like, so MANY variables so much variability and such long, for human, timeframes.)
From globally warmed and now snowy Calgary . . .
We had a recent scandal in the anesthesia research community wherein it turns out that a very prominent researcher from New York has been caught falsifying and even outright fabricating data. We’ve had to go through all twenty-odd of his major published papers and sort out what, exactly he’d posited, as his assertions are now highly dubious and probably best discounted. Unfortunately, he only got caught because he started getting greedy with respect to the volume of research he was publishing.
It illustrates the importance of sound methods, openness with respect to methods (James Hansen’s computer models??!!) , reproducibility, and consistency with observed phenomena (If there’s global warming, why am I watching snow accumulate on my deck in June?).
Scientific research is, indeed, a very human undertaking. Perhaps it’s akin to Churchill’s analysis of democracy, the worst method for studying the natural world, except for all the others.
Sorry Eric, I meant Glengarian, need my glasses for reading and shovelling all this snow off the deck today.
Thank you FRED2, the system was set up to be open so good information could be exchanged freely but so can bullshit. The funding leavers are directing the research. Maybe that’s why the G&M are constantly ranting at Harper for the “cutting” of research funds. Maybe it’s not being cut but redirected to real research…. let’s hope it’s for the good.
It is amazing how all research seems to lead to successful peer reviewed conclusions. Some research is abandoned but only by groups the never ever publish.
Snow up here in northern Alberta, 4cm & -1*c. Isn’t this GW sh*t great.
Or as we Christians are fond of saying, “For ALL have sinned and come short of the Glory, there is none righteous, no, not one”. In other words it it is impossible to be objective about oneself and thus we need One upon whom we can trust. But who is it that we shall trust? Another human with all the failings and foibles as oneself? Shall we set our eyes upon a set of rules that we might follow? Or shall we look to One who gives us a new nature that we may look, not to ourselves, but One far greater.
I started having serious doubts about some “scientific research” when I searched for a natural way to lower my cholesterol several years ago. I soon stumbled on to Dr. Uffe Ravnskov’s criticisms of widespread statin use to lower cholesterol. Ravnskov writes and lectures about the limitations of cholesterol lowering drugs for prolonging life, problems with the research that encourages it, and how pharmaceutical money corrupts the research process. He says that researchers tend to use statistical tests that are most apt to yield significant results. The reason for this is simple: big pharma is more likely to fund work from people who validate the effectiveness of their products. Peer review is supposed to weed out poor work, but it rather tends to validate the status quo when the reviewers get their funds from the same sources.
Here is a relevant quote from an article at Money/CNN.com: It’s no secret that academic researchers receive funding from industry in the form of grants, paid consultancies, and the like. In fact, the biotech and pharma industries fund more than 60% of biomedical research in the U.S., up from 32% in 1980.
“There’s a mountain of evidence that shows that people who have financial relationships with industry produce biased research and come up with biased recommendations for treatment,” notes Shannon Brownlee, author of “Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer”. Brownlee points out, as has been widely reported, that of the nine medical experts who devised the national cholesterol guidelines, six had received research grants, speaking honoraria, or consulting fees from at least three of the five companies that produce brand-name statins.
I now take all research results I read about with a grain of salt. Peer review, rather than encouraging honesty and good methodology, seems to sustain group-think and a sort of political correctness that is bad for science.
If global warming is such a hoax, why do you rednecks and right wing freaks go on about it so much? You’re not convincing anyone else and you’re wasting the time you could be using to hunt squirrel.
fred2. i would say that a lie is a lie no matter how many words one uses to say otherwise.
No dang squirrels to hunt, theys all still hibernatin its so cold this year.
When e-mails surface such as…
“SOMEHOW WE HAVE TO MAKE THE MEDIEVAL WARMING PERIOD DISAPPEAR.”
The the recipiant of that e-mail, an unknown post graduate, Micheal Mann, produces his “HOCKEY STICK” and suddenly becomes a lead author for the IPCC…….
Something smells and not just in Denmark…..
It’s awful having my trust abused.
Old White Guy:
Speaking as a researcher…
Fred2 is right. The boundaries are not clear. There are many grey areas and subtle forms of bias that even the researcher may not be aware of.
One problem is that too many scientists advance their ideas like they are lawyers. When they go to write a paper, they try to make the best case they can for their proposals, instead of presenting as honest of an assesment as they can.
The thing that saves the entire process is that other scientists, in attempting to replicate the work, will bring attention to these short comings. Perhaps even more common is that poor quality work that doesn’t perform as advertised slowly drifts into obscurity.
Thus while one researcher or one group of researchers may screw up, as a whole the thing is reasonably self-correcting.
Current science is certainly a mixture of objective fact, politics and dogma. Yes, there are purists still, but a significant portion of paid “scientists” simply use science to bolster their beliefs about how things should work or are supposed to work. Few be there who strictly adhere to the scientific method and publish the bare results or the full story.
Mark Peters:
The situation is not as bad as you say. Poor or fraudulent scientists do occasionally gain prominence, but it’s uncommon. The level of integrity amongst researchers is impressive.
A strict scientific method doesn’t really exist, and would probably be unworkable if it did. Nor can one publish “the full story” on any research. Journals don’t like 100-page papers. Reviewers would insist that you pare it down by cutting and summarizing.
[quote]The level of integrity amongst researchers is impressive.[/quote]rabbit
I agree but thats not what JOE SIX PAK thinks
When I use the term “Empirical Evidence” I know that I am referring to an observation lacking a strict scientific explanation or obtained outside the scientific method…IE. made by mistake/contamination etc
Tis the blurring of disciplines, and tools like Modeling (that are empirical), and then misrepresenting those observations as a stand-alone Scientific Statement…
That is in my empirical opinion… Fraud
MSM editor replies to Anthony Watts on Watts’ blog.
Have you seen this action before?
This is significant*.
IMO, the “tipping point” in the war against AGW has been surpassed.
The slide down the memory hole for the Warmites, including Gore, Suzuki, Citoyen Dionky, et al, has begun.
More, and faster.
…-
” Mark Landsbaum (11:39:52) :
Anthony,
I wrote the editorial in the Register. We’ve followed your work for some time and find it persuasive.
I blog quite often – to the distress of some alarmist readers, I’m afraid – on global warming at the Register’s opinion blog, http://www.ocregister.com/orangepunch.
Please keep me abreast of new developments, and you might visit our blog occasionally to balance out my hate mail in the comments.
Thanks.
At your service in Christ . . .
Mark Landsbaum
Editorial Writer
Orange County Register
REPLY: Thanks Mark, I will have new information soon, and I’ll pass it along to you. WUWT readers, please consider a visit to “Orange punch” – Anthony”
…-
*A significant editorial on weather stations and data quality
5 06 2009
I was surprised to learn today, that one of the most prominent newspapers in the USA, the Orange County Register in the Los Angeles area, carried an editorial of which my work was the subject. It is quite a turnaround from the brush off I got last year by their Science Dude blogger who wrote a story on the warming of Santa Ana, CA..”
urlm.in/colb (WUWT)
“..and up to 72% knew someone who had committed other questionable research practices.”
How’s that for passing the buck? Unless, it’s true..
“it is time to elevate science to its righful place in shaping Government policy”
( of course as long as it agrees with my political agenda )
sarcasm/ Conservatives being Troglodytes and anti-science Religious fanatics, cannot be blamed for scientific “making shite up” so I guess we dodged the bullet on this one. /sarcasm
This is why all research to be deemed scientific has to be able to be replicated and compared to observations or experiments. Additionally the “I re-worked the predictions each year” and the “just wait and I will eventually be right” combined with the moving the goal posts style of science especially in solar and climate fields is IMHO making a mockery of science and the scientific method.
It means that Economics and Climate Science have about the same methodology and accurracy rate when looking forward, but they are great looking back, too bad matching the past is easy because you know the answer and you can just make data up that fills in the short-comings in your hypothesis.
Prof Richard Fenyman explains science…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in5J6D-0vxY&feature=player_embedded
Carbon bad, wood OK.
Carbon cause warming, unless it gets colder. Then carbon causes cooling.
That why we neo-pagans call in climate change. If it get warm, it change. If it get cool, it change. Simple, huh? Send money for Gaia.
Wood OK to burn in Europe. Not banned, even though burning it release more carbon in the air than oil.
Change. Good as the rest.
If global warming is such a hoax, why do you rednecks and right wing freaks go on about it so much? You’re not convincing anyone else and you’re wasting the time you could be using to hunt squirrel.
Posted by: Troll at June 6, 2009 12:17 PM
—–>
Well golly gee der troll, its cause fellers up der in da cap-e-tal are taxing da hell outta us to stop dat der glob-el warmin’. So dem boyz are takin all my ammo money and pudding up dem big whirly fans and scared all da squeerels away!
Additionally when looking at the underlying physics regarding anthropogenic global warming, or climate change in the current venacular, it becomes clear that the catastrophic warming predictions are not based on the GHG forcings, but rather on climate sensitivity and little understood inter and independent feedbacks, if you combine that fact that, as current data shows us, the more well understood feedbacks from natural variations are much stronger than orginally attributed by the main research assumptions, both of these basic data points work to disprove the theory above the basic physics which were never really in question.
If one such as yourself were 1) able to identify your waste port from a hole in the ground, 2) Able to read beyond a Grade 10 level that most MSM science reporting is written at you would not need to be convinced that by even the most liberal application of the Scientific Method Anthrogenic Global Warming is disproven and is therefore invalid as a theory. To start the final death knell add in that the current course of research does not even meet any accepted method of scientific inquiry.
Now I gots to getz back to me wood splitin cuz its feelin a mite bit chili of late and dem der squeerels aint gonna hunt demselves.
Omitting items that don’t fit the conclusions. Hidn’t Mendel do that in order to come up with the teory of genes and inherited traits.
what drivel.
Years ago circa 1964 I visited a fraternity brother of mine working very late one night in the lab on his PhD in Chem Engr, Another grad student was in the lab as well and I casually watched as he used a needle to insert some samples in the port of a mass spectrometer. After he had finished and left the room my fraternity brother turned to me and said: “Do you know how fortunate you are? NO ONE in the dept has EVER seen him do ANY experimental work until tonight.” Years later it was found that all the data upon which his degrees and subsequent professional reputation was based were largely falsely manufactured out of thin air.
But the key here to the story is that these falsifications didn’t come to light for many years due to the fact his work was done in a minor “niche” field few were working in as it was labeled too prosaic and intellectually “uninteresting” even though increasingly important for the industrial process. It was only when others began to try to replicate his results and enough failures resulted that could not be dismissed as ham-fisted attempts by inferior scientists, that the nature of his fraud became evident.
The upshot? Sometimes it literally takes YEARS to prove someone has falsified experimental results–even when they are suspect.
Been a while folks – I see things are looking up: only one troll, and he has the forthrightness to call himself “Troll”. I must say, that level of honesty is uprising, coming from a left-wing freak.
I don’t like to reinvent the wheel, so here’s a post I made recently in Watts Up With That – not that you guys don’t deserve totally original stuff, but it’s Sunday and I’m feeling lazy. 🙂 Here we go:
“I suspect that many ‘scientists’ are heavily co-opted by green industry (I love saying that, first because it’s so obviously true, and also because its opposite is of course the first accusation leveled against skeptical technologists and scientists).
I think the fact that even a few years ago we didn’t see the now-HUGE money machine around environmental scare tactics that we do speaks volumes. I mean, it’s a fad, it’s a la mode, it’s the way right-thinking, aware people behave now. We have had the environmental movement for decades, and the reason it has maintained its relevance (and its employment rate) is by periodically starting a scare. Anyone in marketing knows how difficult it is to maintain the attention of their audience – thus the hyperbole. Not merely ‘You’ll lose the Fire-bellied Newt’, but ‘You, and your children, and everything you know and love on this planet are going to be annihilated unless you adopt right behavior – and put your money where we want you to.’
Here’s a nice quote I just received from my brother, well worth repeating here and anywhere there’s space to put it:
From the book ‘Stuff White People Like’:
‘An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through awareness, meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, magically causing someone else, like the government, to fix it.
This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any difficult challenges, because the only challenge of raising awareness is getting the attention of people who are currently unaware.’