Literally the worst scientist in history

[@PeteJudo1]

Go to ground.news/Pete to see all sides of every story. Subscribe through my link to get 40% off the Vantage subscription for unlimited access this month only.

The fact that AP is considered left wing beggers belief.

[@MatthewElvey]

I think DOI 10.3390/life12010062 is a more impressive gaffe. How 'bout covering it, Pete? Takes down a top medical statistician and a top trialist, while raising up others.

[@frogmastiff8198]

Thomas Midgely Jr, not only put lead into gasoline to stop engine knock, despite many of his peers begging him to rethink his choice on the matter, he also pioneered the use of many early chloroflourocarbons, its hard to quantify the amount of enviromental damage he caused as a single person, the lead content of the 20th century atmosphere till now is kind of insane

[@stevedrake1861]

Boldt may have been a bad dude, he isn't responsible (at least indirectly) for the deaths of millions of people like Anthony Fauci.

[@Irobert1115HD]

please correct the title top recent history because trophim lysenco has a body count in the millions.

[@BadChad-tn3ii]

Perhaps fraud that results in death should be prosecuted criminally?

[@Strype13]

You would think?

[@Oceangrace90]

Check paolo macchiarini's sentence. He killed healthy patients.

[@Wchen21]

forging signatures of the co-authors is INSANE. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that!

[@nolan2070]

I guess you will have to start googling yourself periodically or pay for a service to do this.

[@alexk7012]

That was kind of bold from him as i would say

[@Cat-tastrophee]

My mouth dropped open at that. Shameless!

[@Irobert1115HD]

F. D. C. Willard is greeting my friend. he was a co author of a scientific article in a physics journal and solo author of another article in another paper. sounds ok right? well the name stands for: Felis Domesticus Chester Willard and he was the cat of the author if the paper where he was co author.

[@bobbyfeet2240]

Usually in my experience, coauthors are emailed for their confirmation that they were involved. Weird that this journal didn't.

[@rightpa]

In 2009 I graduated from the US military's physician assistant program and was assigned to a combat battalion getting ready to deploy to Iraq. As part of my training prior to deployment I went to the Combat Casualty Care Course where hetastarch was touted as the greatest thing since lactated ringer's when it came to improved perfusion after massive hemorrhagic trauma. I went back to my battalion and made sure all my medics were carrying at least two 500ml bags of hetastarch in their aid bags along with some LR. I had dozens of 500ml bags in my aid station. Fortunately none of my guys were ever in a position where they needed it. My Iraq deployment ended in spring of '11 and it was shortly after that when I remember hearing murmurs in the community about problems with hetastarch and how it was more likely to cause kidney injury. I looked up the data on it and decided to pull it from my medics and out of my aid station. This POS academic in his ivory tower should be rotting in jail or worse. No one will ever know how many soldiers died getting this trumped up poison infused into them by the very people who were working desperately to save their lives.

[@Minuteman_Medic]

What's sad is that they were still teaching guys to use Hetastarch at 68W AIT as an option if whole blood wasn't available as late at 2018. It wasn't until I got to my unit that they were like "nah never use that"

[@lucaswallo8127]

why military, trash.

[@rightpa]

@@lucaswallo8127 I'm assuming English isn't your first language.

[@rafaelacosta5724]

​@@lucaswallo8127are you trashing the military? Hahaha...

[@ncdave4life]

Amen, and thank you for your service, Sir!

[@GiuseppeBertini]

Please note that the standard deviation (SD) is a property of the particular distribution under study and does NOT become smaller when the sample size increases. Instead, adding observations will make the SD of the sample closer and closer to that of the whole underlying population. A commonly used metric that DOES decrease with larger sample sizes is the standard error of the mean (SEM), which does not describe a distribution but expresses the degree of uncertainty of how close the sample mean is to the population's true mean. A small SEM indicates that the sample's average is close to that of the population.

[@mater5930]

Stats is one of the most useful tools to understand the world.

[@VeganSemihCyprus33]

Technology is making us living in our heads away from here and now: The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🙌

[@ai_outline]

I was looking for this comment… this is HS level math. He should be more careful with his videos. However I won’t judge since he studied psychology and I bet they know little of mathematics.

[@FalkonNightsdale]

That's PARTIALLY true… I mean, you are right about more reflective alternative, but utterly wrong about SD - if your hypothesis is correct, then it is trully getting lower with increased sample size, as more extremes are cropped out (particularly if you cleverly raise alpha to something like a=0,1) and if you are really lucky or perhaps prodigy, sigma1 can get really close to mean - albeit at that point, fraud is much more likely…

[@SaskatoonBerryPie]

Did he just mispeak and say SD instead of SE? Lots of people have said that by accident. Even if say a colleague said SD by accident when discussing estimates everyone would know they meant SE. Not ideal but it happens.

[@meshuggahdeciple327]

The crazy thing is that the US Army used Hextend, a form of this colloid, for almost 10+ years during the global war on terror. I was a medic and we were trained to administer up to 1L of this substance (500ml at a time over the course of an hour) after soldiers suffered severe injuries that resulted in profound hypovolemia. We were told that it helped our patients maintain perfusion and more stable blood pressures. I truly wonder how many good men and women have died because we were taught that it was supposed to help them. I'm thankful we moved on to a walking blood bank and fresh whole blood model for fluid replacement, but it still is sombering to think about.

[@I_fuck_moms_of_CIA_trolls.]

"Sobering", not "sombering".

[@Cordman1221]

Let me offer some small consolation on that: the Iraq/Afghanistan war were the most survivable wars in history (for a US soldier, not so much normal people). The fact there is a public perception of the role of prosthetics and replacement for amputees is due in huge part to the fact that way, way more soldiers who were horribly injured lived through it, precisely due to the modern methods used by the armed forces in those conflicts. So, small credit where it's due.

[@meshuggahdeciple327]

@@Cordman1221 we did some incredible things when it came to life saving care. I not trying to shit on our medical prowess, I'm just sad that something like this could slip through the cracks and damage our credibility and legacy, as well as cause preventable harm.

[@ChasOnErie]

Crazy times ❤️❤️

[@tobuslieven]

If you lie for financial gain, isn't that fraud? Why aren't these cases being investigated by the legal system? It will continue to happen as long as it's not taken seriously by the law. People probably died because of this. It is serious. It needs to be taken seriously by the legal system. There are laws in place to punish this already, but the police turn a blind eye. Why?

[@gmchilehead]

Probably died? The video says it directly lead to the deaths of 200-300 people PER YEAR until the studies were retracted.

[@16rumpole]

yes it is. A research paper published in a reputable medical journal always indicates any financial relationships the author has.

[@SteveB-nx2uo]

nah fauci did it and hes running shit

[@KlaskeyProductions]

Same reason why it’s hard to charge police officers, there’s an element of qualified immunity so that consequences for mistakes don’t discourage future researchers. He should be charged with fraud though, this is cutting corners on the order of psychopathy.

[@SteveB-nx2uo]

@@KlaskeyProductions qualified immunity should be called "Abusive psychopath immunity from the law"

[@markcarey67]

Incidentally, anesthesiologists are over represented on the list of most retracted papers for some reason.

[@studogable]

The peer reviewers seem to be sleeping on the job. I'll show myself out.

[@mamacito1795]

​@@studogablewow....I'm numb. Hold the door please, I'm right behind u

[@GrausamerKerberos]

How do these people sleep at night?

[@javic6409]

quick note: The relationship is: larger sample size -> smaller standard ERROR (no standard deviation).

[@swozzlesticks3068]

Standard error is just another way of saying "standard deviation of the sample mean" What he said in the video was vague, but not incorrect.

[@Luke-mr4ew]

I would recommend in the colloid vs crystalloid argument describing why people found it plausible for a colloid to be a better fluid: it has an oncotic pressure that you can't get from crystalloid. The molecules are too large to leave the capillaries, meaning they trap the water in with them and keep the blood volume expanded rather than leaking fluid as oedema. This effect is demonstrable in artificial semi-permeable membranes. What is lacking from this comprehension is the fact that colloids including HES do direct damage to the glycocalyx (the little-understood membrane lining capillaries) that made oncotic pressures irrelevant, as even the large HES molecules could then leak out of the vasculature into surrounding tissue.

[@creativecatalyst777]

Excellent information. Thank you.

[@16rumpole]

this just reinforces the adage that just because something sounds like a good idea doesn't mean it actually is.

[@Luke-mr4ew]

@16rumpole That is often the case, though the colloid rationale is actually still somewhat true. Instead of using HES we use Albumin, and instead of our main resuscitation fluid it has a narrower but still important set of uses

[@r2db]

The current data suggests that colloids are, in fact, quite superior. The colloid of choice for resuscitation from hemorrhagic shock is whole blood. The problem is that is not available in most US hospitals, and even balanced transfusion of 1:1:1 packed cells : plasma : platelets is not an option in many US hospitals (very few have platelets readily available, and thawing plasma takes time). At some facilities, 4-6 units of O negative packed cells and some tranexamic acid is the best we can do.

[@nblack2867]

This is what bothers me most about academic fraud/misconduct. How many people are hurt between the time the paper is published and the time it is retracted? That's a number that feels impossible to know. It's one thing if it's an honest mistake. Honest mistakes aren't harmless, but at least they were honest. Straight up faking data for experiments that never happened is not only harmful, but also dishonest. P.S. Thanks for making this video. I saw him on the leaderboard and was wondering how he got so many retractions.

[@jacobhansen4388]

I hope he can be held accountable for damages that could have occured because of his fraudulent studies. That is scary that his studies shaped what drugs were used, including unsafe ones.

[@sillysad3198]

HINT: Karen Starko, Salycilates 1918 flu

[@VeganSemihCyprus33]

Technology is making us living in our heads away from here and now: The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🙌

[@beatonthedonis]

Academia has turned into a sausage factory. If you don't publish, you get fired. The more you publish, the more likely you'll get permanent employment, and the more prestige and money you receive. The only checks are editorial control and peer review - which can be bypassed by disreputable or sloppy journals, of which there are many - and the personal ethical values of the authors.

[@Irobert1115HD]

there once was a guy who wanted to enter a paper into a scientific journal but wasnt allowed to because he had no co author so he entered his cat into the paper as his co author. it got accepted and he continued to add his cat as co author every now and then since. ok i correct myself: the cats name was F. D. C. willard and the kitty actually was co author only once but is the solo author of some papers. rest in piece mister chester the world needs more kitties like you.

[@dubya85]

My question is this: on each of those 68 papers, who were the peers and what did they review?

[@Dennis-vh8tz]

And are they being investigated? Are other papers they reviewed being reviewed, retracted pending re-review, etc?

[@renerpho]

As someone pointed out in this comment section, the reason that anesthesiologists are over-represented on the list of most retracted papers may be that the peer reviewers are often sleeping on the job.

[@jcolinmizia9161]

There’s a misconception that peer reviewers are supposed to identify fraud, but that’s not the main thing they look for. Peer review is primarily to make sure that the paper is relevant, and that all of the questions asked in the paper are addressed in a reasonable manner, and that the data in the paper justifies the conclusions of the paper. A good reviewer will go through the data and analysis to make sure everything makes sense. But for the most part the reviewer takes the data at face value unless something is glaringly wrong or makes no sense.

[@REXOB9]

@@jcolinmizia9161 The peer reviewers should have been able to spot the warning flags that the two readers sent to the journal editor. There were glaring issues with the study that peer review should have flagged.

[@glennchartrand5411]

The Journals are operating on the honor system. The reviewers aren't repeating the experiments or checking for fraud. They are mainly looking at grammar,composition ,citations and if there is enough information for other scientists to repeat the experiment in order to verify it. The problem is that people are treating published studies as "Verified Science" but verification doesn't happen until after the paper is published.

[@MultiSciGeek]

Props to the "hopeless" ethic committee actually committing to researching the extent of his fraud!

[@Joeink100]

I find it hard to believe he's the worst German scientist ever, i mean they did have a few years where they had a small rep for it

[@GordonHouston-Smith]

Chlorine and mustard gas, Sarin but let's not be picky👍

[@vikramkrishnan6414]

Surely Lysenko should be called the "worst scientist in history"

[@jacksonallan954]

I absolutely expected this video to be about Lysenko.

[@Darkenedster]

Dr Mengele? I think he also considered himself a scientist

[@aloston]

@@Darkenedster At least he did not fake his data ;))

[@Darkenedster]

@@aloston Well, I doubt (hopefully) someone tried to cross-validate his "data" ;)

[@vikramkrishnan6414]

@@Darkenedster : Weirdly enough, a lot of our information on effects of dangerous gases, drowning and hypothermia come from human experiments done by the notorious Unit 731 in Japan.

[@duncanthaw6858]

Lysenko still wins. This guy might be a balanced fighter, but Lysenko's concentrated slam takes him out before the fight can even start.

[@Speederzzz]

COMRADE CORN WILL WORK TOGETHER TO BEAT RUSSIAN COLD

[@renerpho]

Trofim Lysenko, or Thomas Midgley Jr. -- depending on whether you count number of people who died, or impact on the environment as a whole.

[@BichaelStevens]

Ikr? I commented the same thing: those 2 make this Joachim guy look like an angel.

[@wulferikgebhardt5312]

@@renerpho IIRC, Thomas Midgley Jr.'s science was fine. He was just really unlucky with the long-term results of his inventions. Lysenko was a hack and a fraud.

[@Ben_the_Rosafan]

As someone on the autism spectrum, my vote will ALWAYS go to Andrew Wakefield.

[@Jay-kk3dv]

These “peer reviewed” “journals” ignore the flawed statistics and methods when they get the $$$

[@y00t00b3r]

Junk science has been thriving for decades because of this. We can expect criminals to act like criminals, so it's hardly surprising when criminal acts occur. But when criminals get rewarded and promoted by the organizations which are supposed to vet them? I wonder who the real criminals are in this case. Who is violating society's trust worse?

[@sams.3552]

Something unfortunate is that science just... Isn't built to deal with fraud, for a bunch of reasons, some of which are actually good features of science and scientists. You're right that theres an incentive to publish positive and significant results, but honestly, something just as likely is that the reviewers didn't expect fraud, so they didn't look for it. Reviewers are experts in related fields, but with at most a few hours to spend with each paper, reviewers are inclined to believe the numbers and interrogate the conclusions, which is largely reasonable because reviewers can't replicate experiments. There's a problem here, but it isn't just publishers engaging in blatant cash grabs (though that is a problem), it has to do with how we value the time of researchers and what we consider important for them to do-- spending time reviewing papers doesn't put food on the table, so it can be an afterthought. Fixing the journals' incentive structures isn't enough, we need to take better care of a more diverse range of researchers

[@r2db]

@@sams.3552 Agreed. Journals themselves are absolutely part of the problem. It is exceptionally expensive to subscribe to many journals, and per-article fees for every potentially clinically significant article would bankrupt most practicing physicians. The best option is getting oneself associated with a university medical library that offers remote access, but in some cases that isn't an option. On the other end, free open-access medical journals exist but it is exceptionally expensive to publish in them (I have seen some in the five figure range), so if one could spend less to publish and get the article into a more prestigious for-profit journal the choice is clear.

[@Arexack999]

Would a requirement of at least one independent reproduction (or failure of said) of results be possible for publications? Clearly if persions can publish monthly on demand, there is sufficient time and budget to contract an independant to repeat the experiments reported on. I get that repeating science is not glorious, and unlikely to result in publication or Nobels, so yhe system needs to be changed to where great claims carry the responsibiliy of corroberation. Enforced independent corroberation. It would create a great economy for young or just uninspired scientists to work in research. ...probably not include coauthorship as that would just repeat the perverse incentive to fraud.

[@r2db]

@Arexack999 Some studies, such as randomized, controlled human clinical trials, just can't be independently replicated while drugs remain patent-protected, and they are not often economical to replicate for generics. If replication is a requirement, that cost would be passed on to patients. Or they would just split one trial into two and use half as much data for each as they would have used otherwise, potentially leaving each one even more underpowered to determine some of the issues that we often need huge post-marketing data to discover.

[@davidfelton7772]

*Hits blunt* "Yo, what if I got everyone to start injecting patients with mayonnaise??"

[@renerpho]

Wait, the fix for preventing an incident where someone forged the signatures of his coauthors is to ask for all the coauthors to sign?

[@Timeward76]

I'm guessing that means individually contacting each coauthor to ask for a signature. A simple non-collective email would do the trick.

[@medhue]

I want to see a system where NOTHING gets published unless it is replicated. Maybe there should be a 2 tiered system, where something can be published, but ONLY replicated research gets used and taught.

[@cfromnowhere]

Have you heard of preprinting?

[@roginutah]

Immediately results in group-think and censorship. Progress would be extremely slow, if at all.

[@worldpeaceok]

What if the two groups collude? Who pays for the extra cost? Sounds easier than it is.

[@Shafterr]

Honestly I don’t think anyone is going to come out of the 2020’s unscathed. We’re going to look back on the last few decades of science as a dark age and this decade will be our awakening and hopefully the beginning of a new era of scientific accountability.

[@16rumpole]

nothing makes a doctor who is trying to take better care of patients more angry than fraudulent and dangerous research.

[@alihenderson5910]

If he gets paid by the government every time he uses certain 'treatments', then he's usually not too angry.lol.

[@almostredmn9330]

Trofim Lysenko has to be a strong contender, and a cautionary tale for the current era as he is among the best examples of scientific incompetence causing real damage due to advancement based only on clan affiliation and ideological obedience. Lysenko's theories caused famine that killed millions. What goes around, comes around...

[@ferretyluv]

Lysenkoism was intentionally anti-science.

[@myself2noone]

He's also become popular in Russia right now, apparently. His anti-wester rhetoric is apparently being used a lot right now.

[@annalehman93941]

​@@myself2noonewhat "anti-western rhetoric"?

[@a-goblin]

i had to look this guy up & wow, from the wiki article, "Lysenko claimed that the cuckoo was born when young birds such as warblers were fed hairy caterpillars by the parent (rather than host) birds; _this claim failed to recognise that the cuckoos he described were brood parasites."_ holy shit man, guy had crackhead ideas.

[@almostredmn9330]

@@a-goblin There are countless scientists who have had "crackhead ideas." The distinction here is that Lysenko was able to achieve a position of power, influence and impact, despite obvious incompetence, because of his enthusiastic ideological boosterism and the brutal silencing of dissent. No modern parallels there, though; I tell you what...

[@moemchen1402]

As a germanspeakee i can say u pronounced Klinikum Ludwigshafen correctly

[@Mothprove]

I can confirm :)

[@VeganSemihCyprus33]

Technology is making us living in our heads away from here and now: The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🙌

[@KaiHenningsen]

As opposed to "Joachim". It's pretty much Jo-Achim, with the ch at least somewhat similar to the Scottish "loch", and the Jo like an English 'Yo".

[@lucaslouzada44]

How come nobody ever tried to reproduce his results earlier? How can it be possible no one noticed the bulk of the research was linked to the same person? Decisions based on high financial risks should take that into account…

[@planetary-rendez-vous]

Have you heard of the reproducibility crisis? Yeah. Reproducing papers has not been a thing. We just trust ™ that it was good ™

[@idontwantahandlethough]

@@planetary-rendez-vous it's not "not a thing", it's just not nearly as common of a thing as it should be (I know that you already know that, I'm just saying it for the sake of any future comment-reading hyper-intelligent doggos) FWIW (not much), believe the reasoning is simply that double-checking previously done experiments is not fun, does not produce profit or secure more funding, does not make a name for the scientists, and [generally] does not produce much media buzz. When we make profit the sole end-goal of everything, we run into a lot of problems. Sometimes, the goal is not and _cannot_ be profit 🤷‍♂

[@JeffreyGirard]

I think you mean Standard Error not Standard Deviation. (The SE is the SD of the sampling distribution but most people will think you mean SD of the sample, which is wrong.)

[@joshuabornographic]

Went looking for this in the comments. Found it multiple times. Well done.

[@timg6290]

German biology student here. Professrs have told us a few times about Boldt and one of my friend's gf was in the same university he worked at. But very good pronunciation on Klinikum Ludwigshafen!

[@alan-the-maths-tutor]

These commercials on TV that quote "83% of women prefer blah blah blah" are always conducted with small sample sizes. You can even conduct multiple small sample studies and pick the one that gives the bias you want. On another note, there are interesting statistical studies that can detect fabricated data since such data always contain an unnatural distribution of digits.

[@amigalemming]

The current German minister for "health", Prof. Karl Lauterbach, big advocate of anti-Covid war and Covid vaccination, was one of the study leaders of Lipobay, a drug that caused several deads, and he wrote a guideline for doctors to use Sibutramin against adiposis. Doctors literally had to prescribe this drug if they did not want be made liable for not doing so. However, after 10 years it became evident that Sibutramin has no effect but lots of harmful side effects. This seems to be the necessary track record for becoming federal health minister in Germany.

[@mellusk9194]

I nominate António Egas Moniz for the category of worst scientist in history. He was even awarded a Nobel Prize for his nonsense.

[@Gtx-ij9ff]

I think its a bit unfair to judge him from todays standpoint where we have better treatments and understanding of mental illness. I mean this was before the advent of antipsychotic drugs and certain patients did have some level of recovery. Not his fault that others went crazy with the procedure. And he was nominated for the nobel prize for other work, like using radioactive substances to visualize the brain which is IMO a huge breakthrough.

[@D4rkc14ymor3]

His treatment worked, it was brutal in hindsight, but it worked with the knowledge they had at the time. Judging the past based on what we know now is a dangerous game and foolish.

[@ningayeti]

Albumin (a blood derivative) is also a colloid and is used safely and effectively millions of times each year in the U.S. The problem described here is with colloidal "starch". The decision to use a crystalloid or a colloid (excluding starch) is based on the nature of volume loss as well as factors specific to the individual patient as well as the availability of albumin.

[@superdriver777]

Requiring the signatures of co-authors to "prove" they saw the data doesn't really help when the signatures were forged...

[@elonever.2.071]

No it wont but contacting the coauthors to see if they did review and approve the paper during the reviewing process would eliminate it for sure.

[@riotintheair]

I've always considered chemist Thomas Midgley Jr. as having this dubious honor.

[@michaelkeller5927]

Yes and honestly it's not even close

[@GordonHouston-Smith]

Mengle

[@pedromenchik1961]

Your given definition for a colloid is actually an emulsion

[@philmusson1265]

And albumen is egg white not salmon protein.

[@vasimir3183]

did.. an ai write this?

[@vasimir3183]

​actually its a homophone ​@@philmusson1265 albumin is salmon protein albumen is egg white. not same spelling

[@HavocHerseim]

yeah, thats why I actually kept watching. I'm don't care about science one bit... but I heard that and knew it was wrong. I didn't graduate high school.

[@ProjArsSci]

Correct, but don't give him hard time, he's just a poor social "sciences" non-scientist, and not a chemist.

[@blenderpanzi]

Your pronunciation of Ludwigshafen was very good. For Klinikum: u in German is pronounced like oo in English (except if in eu, au, äu, which don't really exist in English - they are somehere kinda but not really like oui or oi). And for Joachim: ch is not pronounced like k! It's a kinda throaty hissing sound. (Except when she n sch: that as a whole is just the same as the English sh.) Edit: Another exception: If ch is at the start of a word it IS pronounced like k in German. Examples: Chemie, China, Chirurgie, Chlor

[@phyarth8082]

"Paper-mill" 192 articles retracted from one scientist in very niche science subject anesthesiology is technically possible to review every paper. In physics if you find or do experiment in 5 years it must be big thing.

[@elonever.2.071]

I sure he got a lot of grants from those 192 papers until the fraud was detected.

[@REXOB9]

Thanks for reporting this. Not only is Boldt the worst scientist in history, he is not a very good liar.

[@jochen-weber]

Just a quick clarification question... Around 5:30 into the video you say something like, "the bigger the sample size, the lower the standard deviation." Maybe I am too rusty on my statistics ;) I thought this would only push down the standard error (say, the SEM, which is standard deviation divided by square root of sample size). Somehow I understood that the standard deviation is only minimally affected by this...

[@GiuseppeBertini]

You are correct, I posted a similar comment before seeing this...

[@joshuabornographic]

Went looking for this in the comments. Found it multiple times. Well done.

[@peglor]

Rookie human harm numbers compared to the guy who invented CFCs and leaded gasoline though.

[@j.clements2093]

“Mommy. What does peer review mean?” “Nothing my child. It means absolutely nothing.”

[@IlluminatiBG]

(Insert "good idea" meme here) You cannot mistreat patients if you never used patients to begin with.

[@onetwothree9]

Andrew Wakefield is an obvious candidate, though some might argue that he doesn't deserve being called a scientist at all.

[@dionysianapollomarx]

Second this! He might get the same treatment in a video by someone in the future. He should.

[@theobserver2309]

You echo the brainwashed sheep who willingly participated in the great deception.

[@nolan2070]

In the past, I would have never believed such a thing would be done by a prominent person. How delusional do you have to be to believe you could get away with it? With what people in the US believe when it comes to politics, nothing shocks me anymore. That is something I hope is being studied.

[@DavidM2002]

Given how influential these papers can be, I would suggest that the publications must also do some of their own due diligence and contact any co-authors. The task is not that onerous given the magnitude of the impact that these paper might have.

[@ReadyToHarvest]

Enjoyed watching this, thanks for your research! It's certainly concerning.

[@alexdevisscher6784]

I would give the award for worst scientist to Trofim Lysenko, whose agricultural pseudo-science led to the starvation of millions in the USSR.

[@MrArbaras]

My problem with the idea of these "news bias" sites is they presume all outlets lie on a single axis of left vs right, and there's no other meaningful attributes to seperate them by. It's also pretty rediculous to call any report as factual or unfactual when news outlets are ostensibly social trend trackers, not fact finders. It would be more helpful to track the types of emotive language used, rather than trying to define what's factual in a world filled with lies and misconceptions

[@joshuabornographic]

Strongly agree with your observation. While I like the intent of sites like Ground News or AllSides, a single left-right dimension is a terrible tool for attempting to describe socio-political views. _The Myth of Left and Right_ by Hyrum and Verlan Lewis is a recent book that analyzes this in the context of U.S. politics. I like your idea of attempting to track the emotive language used. That does seem like a more tractable and solvable problem than a website trying to be a arbiter of facts. Wait a minute, I just found a good idea in a KZbin comment. Mind blown.

[@gaerekxenos]

True. The reality is that all social issues and ideologies are multi-faceted and the only reason we have "two sides" is because of certain political systems that end up having two dominant sides -- it's a very different story when you have systems where you have multiple different parties as contenders. It works easily in countries such as the US due to how bi-partisan it is, but that is oversimplifying the whole thing quite a bit. We're not even questioning factuality of the articles and the idea is already in a rut at its core

[@Canleaf08]

Both sides do not handle covid myths correctly.

[@MarksThinkTank]

Thomas Midgley Jr. makes Boldt look like like scientist of the year.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

Joachim Boldt-the Usain Bolt of academic fraud.

[@falconeshield]

Bolt is actually successful

[@jakepullman4914]

@@falconeshield So was Boldt... until his lies caught up to him.

[@avi4francis]

Looks like, if you're aspiring scientist, **nature** and **Science** are two journals that you should definitely avoid. They just want to pump out headlines like it's authors.

[@doctorlolchicken7478]

I’m amazed that all this academic fraud is allowed to persist. These papers had fake signatures of people credited for the paper. So that means there were ten plus years where all these contributors were somehow “unaware” that they were falsely linked to these papers. Also, in my field we have to show the effect of leaving out critical contributing data from a particular source, to note the effect on any conclusion of one of the sources being incorrect. So in my book even the people that used this guy’s research didn’t do enough to show how robust their conclusion was. My profession is all about money, not lives. So we have to be more sure that people will make money than we are that lives will be saved. That’s pathetic.

[@smiley_1000]

Actually your pronunciation of Ludwigshafen was spot on

[@evgenysavelev837]

All I see is the scientific process working as it should: the peer review caught the mistake. Yes a bit late, but it was caught. The journals must have a good talk with the peer reviewers who were given the original paper to review, but most likely the journal is more concerned with its profits, rather than making sure the conclusions of the study is validated. This is not a problem with scientific method, it is a problem of certain journals NOT following the scientific method principles. We just need to make sure the scientific journals adhere to higher standards and all authors must be independently contacted for approval of the manuscript plus all the raw data used to produce the paper must be shared with the reviewers and made available for download by anyone reading the paper (perhaps properly anonymized using differential privacy methods if PII is in the raw data).

[@gur262]

100s . Many years. Actual impact. no it's not working. It's like saying police is working as intended and everythings awesome. when they catch a serial killer after 40 years as he continues to kill people every single Year

[@anzaas4381]

Minor point, but I think you have mixed up standard deviation with standard error. Standard deviation is a descriptive statistic that does not change (in any consistent way) with sample size. The standard deviation of the samples is always the best estimate of the standard deviation of the entire population. A larger sample size gives smaller standard errors and narrower confidence intervals.

[@alanfike]

How could he think that he wouldn't get caught?

[@bryanpetersen1334]

Your content is much more beneficial than what I’ve been getting on the Pete Aikido channel.

[@legend7951]

Wow, props to the two guys who caught the inaccuracies in the paper, I'm surprised it even got through any peer reviewing process if it was so quickly shut down

[@mikesanders8621]

I like this because I was called gifted as a child and I can pretend I'm informing myself, when in reality I just need something constantly distracting me from the fact that I've addled my brain with psychedelics and wasted my youth. Thanks!

[@kaesestink]

your prounounciation of "klinikum Ludwigshafen" was by far the cleanest in the video, actually almost perfect.

[@lostsock9852]

I want a system which puts less emphasis on the number of publications to get funding

[@KobeeVance]

Those news bias ads are some serious bullshit. It's reductive to the hard work journalists do. A better measure is by reliability of facts, and NOT by how the outlet frames a story.

[@Hero_Puddle]

How people frame news stories is important. There can be a lot of ways outlets try and psychologically push you to come in with a certain mindset. No idea how good ground news is by the way, but it is important to be conscious of your biases and that of the media you can consume.

[@lisettegarcia]

This tea is better than celebrity housewives and true crime. I'm suddenly addicted.

[@des1990]

im from ludwigshafen and i somehow never knew about this...

[@baarbacoa]

Anyone publishing scientific studies on a frequent basis should be scrutinized.

[@TheBaltrum]

Maybe we all need to exept that any source can have mistakes and you need to think critically all the time. Just take this video. He starts by saying that in terms of math psychology and medicine very are similar and he is experienced with it. Just to completly get the effect of sample size on standard deviation wrong. And we are talking maybe middle school level statistic...so nothing fancy or complicated

[@robert-zg8or]

As soon as i hear private and public hearings i know nothing will ever happen.

[@sophiophile]

Seems like you mixed up SD and SE in your explanation. SD is instrinstic to a distribution, SE decreases as you increase sample size. That being said, the writers may have flagged the fake SD for being too small- but it wouldn't have been because of sample size. I would be interested to know the reality of what set of the alarms, if you wanna correct the video.

[@henghistbluetooth7882]

Nah. Worst scientist is still Ancel Keys.

[@dplj4428]

How many hospitals or surgeons still use it as of December 2023? -- -- Is there a process that alerts them to these retractions?

[@margodphd]

There is, UpToDate being one of them, all of systems but the doctor ran ones are owned by big publishers as they have the manpower to track advances in each branch of medicine.

[@man_in_space]

That was one of the best ad breaks I’ve ever seen.

[@bradyjones8263]

During my research on the cellular slime mold respiratory enzyme complex, I fell asleep during one of my many harvests. I wanted to destroy the data from this error, and my researcher said "No, include ALL data, even if you think it's in error. That is called biasing data and will result in skewed and inaccurate results." There are a thousand ways to lie with data.

[@alanmcdonald5437]

forging signatures and criminal negligence causing death are two very serious criminal offences. Is there some reason he wasn't charged?

[@somethingandapie]

Publishing a paper once a month should be a red flag imo

[@HerpaDurpVg]

Admittedly bummed I didn’t see Wakefields name on that list

[@erikp6614]

Nice and interesting video! Around 5:30: The standard deviation should not change much when you have a larger sample size (as it is an estimate of the standard deviation of the distribution generating the samples). I guess you mean "standard error of the mean"?

[@hugoortega195]

wait, the entire reason this guy was able to commit fraud was lack of checks and balances and improper systems

[@LUM-kb2rl]

There are probably dozens of old nazis in argentina chuckling heartily at this video title.

[@nullptr472]

100% Plus plenty of German and Japanese 'researchers' were never prosecuted; some even went on to create innovative products like Thalidomide based on their experiments in the camps

[@MandrakeFernflower]

Grünenthal moments

[@keithrobinson5752]

The fun part is his papers will have be cited again and again by people who simply did not do a sense check but just went along with the flow. 😮

[@bigupbassline58]

an ad right after the sponsor is hella wild

[@GregiiFlieger]

Did he ever go to prison? A life sentence would be too little…..

[@cdorman11]

Josef Mengele: Halte mein Bier. Trofim Lysenko: Подержи мою водку. Alfred Nobel: Hold my beer.

[@ordinarycynic]

He looks like a discount George Clooney

[@kforest2745]

What do these guys get for “research misconduct,” as they’re obviously getting something out of it to push their practices more than just being irresponsible without any repercussions

[@jimpollard9392]

Would have to be pretty bad to beat Trofim Lysenko for this title.

[@SynthoidSounds]

I recall a case years ago (I think this was in Japan), where some type of genetic study, trying to link specific genetic markers to proclivities toward certain diseases (including some cancers), indicated that the generations of rats with "cow markings" (white with large black spots) seemed to have a more pronounced version of the genetic markers being investigated . . . except for one rather odious caveat, it turns out that the cow rats were actually just plain white rats, whose fur had been painted with black ink. Oh well . . .

[@cynthiagonzalez658]

Didn't the coauthors wonder why they have their names in publications that they never performed ⁉️

[@geraldmartin7703]

Maybe they were just happy to be associated with him. (Which would make them co-fraudsters).

[@cynthiagonzalez658]

@@geraldmartin7703 My thesis advisor once put my name as coauthor ( way down the list)in one of his papers that I knew nothing about. His tech was pissd. What ⁉️ she knew nothing either except she was instructed to do some procedures that she didn't know the purpose of..🤔

[@olivier4218]

How is this not criminal?

[@keiththorpe9571]

They retracted papers he hadn't even written yet. Preemptive retractions.

[@s.henrlllpoklookout5069]

I would still vote for Thomas Midgely Jr.

[@fredericmazoit1441]

In medecin, Paolo Macchiarini is also a good example.

[@user-nm7ju5ph6u]

You forgot Mengele existed for a second bruh.

[@libbychang413]

by far the worst are those AI developers that are paid $millions /yr to invent new technologies whose express purpose is to produce an absolute tyranny of wealth...

[@VeganSemihCyprus33]

Technology is making us living in our heads away from here and now: The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 🙌

[@TheRKae]

Worst scientist in history? The competition for that title is tough!

[@fatedtolive667]

Good job sir, please keep sharing these truths. History shows that, as societies develope, certain specialist groups always gain and maintain power, in the process embedding themselves in the collective psyche by, in part, creating and maintaining mysteries around themselves, which cause ordinary people to ascribe to those groups, a devine or semi-devine status, which renders their utterances inherently irrefutable. Priesthoods and royalties being obvious examples of this phenomenon, with the Mayan and inquisitorial civilisations being dreadful manifestations of the destructive effects of this separation, when it achieves its most extreme manifestation. All that to say that, it would seem reasonable for us, the ordinary folk, to become increasingly concerned that so many of our social systems are increasingly separating themselves, or are being deliberately separated from, the societies in which they exist, with the entirely negative end-point of those separations, leading enexorably to some modern dystopian equivalent, of the mountains of post sacrificial human husks, thrown from our modern day equivalent of the Mayan pyramids. Or perhaps I've an overactive imagination....I truly hope, but fear that I don't. Still, I'll leave more able others, to seek answers.

[@MultiSciGeek]

Video starts 2:55. Skip 3 ads with this one simple trick. You're welcome.

[@electricpaper269]

The worst scientist ever was the guy whose two major achievements were leaded gasoline and CFCs.