…Schön published a paper in a peer reviewed journal at a rate of one every eight days, with many reaching the empyrean heights of Nature, Science, and Physical Review. Other labs were in awe of his results, and puzzled because every attempt they made to replicate his experiments failed, often in ways which seemed to indicate the descriptions of experiments he published were insufficient for others to replicate them. Theorists also raised their eyebrows at Schön’s results, because he claimed breakdown properties of sputtered aluminium oxide insulating layers far beyond measured experimental results, and behaviour of charge transport in his organic substrates which didn’t make any sense according to the known properties of such materials.
The experimenters were in a tizzy, trying to figure out why they couldn’t replicate Schön’s results, while the theorists were filling blackboards trying to understand how his incongruous results could possibly make sense. His superiors were basking in the reflected glory of his ascendence into the élite of experimental physicists and the reflection of his glory upon their laboratory.
In this case I’d have to say that the peer review process worked as failure to duplicate experiments in a discipline like solid-state physics means that either the experimental protocol isn’t sufficiently well documented or one is dealing with fraud.
The next step, when one can’t duplicate a published result, is to correspond with the author of the paper who’s research one is attempting to duplicate. The vast majority of legitimate researchers will do everything possible to make sure one can repeat the experiment outside of their lab including sending samples of the material that they’ve prepared or even coming out to the lab where the failed experiment occurred to see if some non-obvious alteration of the original experiment had taken place.
During my previous life as an electrophysiology researcher, we’d have visiting neurophysiologists in the lab all of the time as there’s a large non-algorithmic component to any bleeding edge area of research and even though one thinks one is completely describing a process, often things one does automatically in the lab seem so obvious that they’re not described but they only seem obvious to the original author.
Patent applications can really chill communications among scientists as then one is breaking one of the fundamental tenets of scientific research by keeping ones results secret. From the companies point of view, having a very broad patent in some area, even if the process they claim to be working is false, will allow them to claim patent infringement should somebody actually create a functioning product which is covered under the overly broad patent. The patent system is so broken it needs to be totally dismantled and it was likely a factor in this fraud.
This is a classic example of cargo cult science where, a researcher notes that the more papers a person has, the higher their standing in the local scientific hierarchy. Thus, instead of doing research which would result in a few truly profound discoveries in a handful of papers, he instead decides that the more papers he publishes the greater his standing will be. He notes that papers have a certain structure, contain graphs and figures and he spends his time generating detailed figures and graphs just like the Pacific Islanders craeated fake airports after WWII. Someone like him should never work in research again and should be tarred and feathered before being run out of his lab. In todays publish or perish research environment, Einstein would be considered a liability given his very low scientific productivity as judged by the number of papers he published.
In medicine, fraud in research if far easier to commit as complexity of meatware is far greater than what one is working with in solid state physics. Also, doctors in many cases appear incapable of being objective and the easiest way one can get threatened as a medical student is to point out glaring holes in a physicians research project. In the world of academic research (or at least when I was a researcher) such criticisms are welcome as it saves one going down the wrong path whereas in medicine such comments lead to threats about ones future. Considering that medicine considers consensus more important than scientific rigor, it’s no surprise that one has the worst scientific frauds being committed in this field.
Excellent analysis.
The entire article could apply just as well to the IPCC and people like Mann, Gore and Suzuki. All for the same reasons you state.
Exactly so, Loki. Here’s one of the more spectacular frauds in the medical field.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Alsabti
Alsabti’s method was disarmingly simple. Copy out someone else’s paper add his name to the list of authors and have it submitted to another journal. The wiki article misses several important points about Alsabit.
1. At the time there were in excess of 12,000 refereed journals in oncology. It was thus reasonable to suppose that one could submit a copied article in some obscure periodical and expect that the real authors would never see it.
2. Typically these papers have dozens of authors, many of whom can be counted on to not be aware of all the places they are listed as a co-author.
3. Alsabti was in fact caught three times. The first time was Columbia University. Embarrassed by what had happened and the fact that the guy in fact knew nothing about anything, they hushed it all up and gave him a glowing reference for another job at another university. I don’t remember who the second university was, but after happening again, the third university finally blew the whistle. And all of Alsabti’s frauds and all of the various universities’ transgressions came spilling out.
That’s the point of peer review. It actually does work. The process has to be perverted for it to fail. Which is by and large what many of the global warmers have done.
As for Einstein, or Max Planck or a host of others a hundred years ago, none of them ever had hundreds of papers. Yet they were at the very top of their field and were often their own most severe critics. Science may have become debased because the moral caliber of some of its practitioners has been corrupted by the entire granting system fostered by government and big industry.
A great deal of experimental science is now guided by the expectations of theorists; it is difficult to obtain funding for an experimental program which looks for effects not anticipated by theory.
Yup, the observations are coloured by the theory. The theory proves the experiment, and the experiment proves the theory. Circular reasoning.
True in both the fields of evolution and AGW.
In Ontario, pseudo-science rules the rooost. Everything – from water movement in acquifers; transmission of botanical diseases; livestock distress – is based on nothing but self-serving speculation that happens to conincide with political agendas.
But the real problem is the unwillingness of true scientists to publicly refute the bullshit. Here is just ine tiny little example of what we’re up against.
http://canadianlandowneralliance.ca/articles/Jamie-MacMaster-Baby-seats-Butternuts-Bureaucrats.html
Thank you Jamie for the well presented and humour in dealing with the ever-encrouching bureaucratic thinking. if you come across a similar presentation on how Elected officials main responsibility is to both limit and hold bureaucracy accountable kindly link up with this ever improving blog place. Cheers;
Like every thing these day science has been politicised. It become a mythological system controlled by the whims of the moment.
Its also under the iron rule of University professors who are always 50 years behind the times.Teaching out right theories that have been discredited years ago.
Its why some scientists write Science fiction. Brian Brin comes to mind. That they don’t spend most of their life looking for funding.
In the future these people should subject their ideas online where you will find real perr review without people having to put their carriers at risk.
“Teaching out right theories that have been discredited years ago.”
What theories would those be?
maybe you could point out this circular reasoning in “evolution”, or is it like the “bible proves god, and god fostered the bible so it must be correct”?
peterj…algore and suzookey aren’t climate scientists, they are more like your every day ministers who simple preach what will fill the collection plate.
cgh… as to Einstein publishing, he was a dyslexic or mildly autistic, and there fore would most likely have a difficult time putting words to paper.
maybe you could point out this circular reasoning in “evolution”…
Duh, I did. The theory colours the subjective interpretation of the fossils, which, in turn, is used to prove the theory.