Why Science Fraud Goes Deeper Than the Stanford Scandal...

Learn about high-profile cases of scientific fraud, its prevalence, and its impact on academia. Discover situational pressures and solutions while exploring the quest for research integrity. It includes coverage of Diederik Stapel in the Netherlands, Woo Suk Hwang in Korea, and Marc Tessier-Lavigne, the president of Stanford University who stepped down in 2023. A must-watch for scientists and curious minds! 🧪🔍 #ScienceFraud #ResearchIntegrity #AcademicEthics
If you're concerned about fraudulent research making its way into the literature and would like to support the work of a group focused on its detection, please consider supporting Data Colada's Legal Defense team at www.gofundme.com/f/uhbka-supp...
From the gofundme.com page: Leif Nelson, Joe Simmons, and Uri Simonsohn are professors who together publish the Data Colada blog. In June 2023, they published a series of blog posts raising concerns about the integrity of the data in four papers co-authored by Harvard Business School (HBS) Professor Francesca Gino. They waited to publish these blog posts until after the HBS’s investigation concluded, with HBS placing Professor Gino on leave and requesting retractions for the four papers. In early August 2023, Professor Gino filed a lawsuit for defamation against Harvard University, and against Leif, Joe, and Uri personally, claiming 25 million dollars in damages. Defending oneself in court is time-consuming and expensive regardless of the merits of the lawsuit - as First Amendment lawyer Ken White put it to Vox , “The process is the punishment.” Targets of scientific criticism can thus use the legal system to silence their critics.
Here's a link to Stuart Ritchie's book on Scientific Fraud: amzn.to/3srjiW6
(an affiliate link).
✨TIMELINE:
0:00 Case 1: Diederik Stapel
1:48 Case 2: Woo Suk Hwang
4:05 Case 3: Marc Tessier-Lavigne
6:07 An Old Problem
7:44 Prevalence of Science Fraud
12:10 What to do About it
✨ABOUT ME:
I received my Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. I joined the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia in 2007, where my research and teaching are focused on social neuroscience.
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[@veramae4098]

Had a boyfriend in th 1970's, in college. He was working in chemistry. He told me about a summer job he had one year testing for pharma companies; he was only allowed to report positive findings.

[@socialneuro]

I have known people over the years who said the same about their lab groups. Eek!

[@karlashoultz3157]

I would guess big pharmacy is the cradle of fraud.

[@shirasagi9390]

same in my lab (grad student in virology/pharmacology). dont know anyone in the research field allowed to report negative findings, because people consider these to be worthless. i plan to leave research after i graduate grad school

[@ahdorbfidks]

@@shirasagi9390what are your plans besides research?

[@shirasagi9390]

@@ahdorbfidks i have a DVM so i plan to work as a clinician and help animals and people. i realized that doing good around me in my life is a top priority for me, and that the research field is corrupt so i wouldn't be able to do this as a researcher. this isnt to say that healthcare isn't corrupt, but if i have my own clinic i can decide to be honest and good towards my patients without a boss telling me to falsify something or keep quiet about something that is harming people. as a researcher i would always have had someone above me telling me what to do, which isnt something i'd want in a corrupt and toxic environment

[@dieterhoffmann6449]

the much bigger problem is institutionalized corruption

[@juliametcalf2660]

Too much bureaucratic control ...

[@JDHobbs]

DIE bureaucracy is the heart of much of it.

[@machobunny1]

Having funded many "academics" to the tune of many millions of dollars, and having worked amongst them for decades as the CEO of an R&D company, I can assert with surety that you are 100% correct, but perhaps a bit understated. In over 15 years of being forced to fund academics in order to win research grants, my company never received one, not ONE, usable result of any kind from any of the 20 or more parasites we funded. It is a racket, a con game, and academia needs to be legally gutted, and rebuilt from the ground up.

[@youarenotme01]

Hahaha, another one who is totally fooled.

[@juliametcalf2660]

@@machobunny1 just like every other institution...banks, medicine, government etc etc etc

[@layne3530]

I have a masters degree in data analytics and out of all of the coding and software and AI I learned, I have to say the most valuable thing I learned was how to actually read and understand published studies and data sets. The amount of crap data in these scientific journals is baffling. I just laugh whenever I hear someone say "trust the science". They have no idea how to read and decipher data to come to a statistically significant scientific conclusion.

[@abdallahal-nachar5501]

WOW, I believe you I really hope people like you go & expose liars with their lies & misinformation because spreading misinformation and falsified data is really dangerous & sometimes could be deadly

[@limerickman8512]

I have near 100% scientific formula that has never been proven wrong. Crap/bias dataset plus/or crap/bias formulas always equals crap/bias outputs.

[@TedBilk]

It's so annoying seeing people use data to draw false conclusions because they don't know how to interpret statistics or because they know that others can't and they just want to manipulate people

[@trevnti]

Also went down the data analyst path and I’ve gotten in arguments with Doctors before about what the data says vs what they are relaying in information.

[@jazerasor1455]

@@TedBilk They don't care, they just want to be right because 1. It feels good to be and 2. They're literally *scared* of being wrong, people can't accept they've been propagating bad information for years. They'd rather double, then triple down on the lie to avoid guilt and feeling stupid, and find anything they can use to justify that. That's why I think those that are the most avid about their beliefs are actually the most self conscious of them, they're desperate for those ideas to be validated.

[@ggwp638BC]

It's important to note that even if the fraud rate is between 2 and 14%, considering fraudulent papers are more likely to have more impactful findings, thus being cited often, and that they can go decades without being found, we might have entire fields built on top of decades of fraudulent data. The actual cost of this fraud is much larger than it appears on the surface.

[@MiraBoo]

Like with the Alzheimer’s paper that was later proven to be false and essentially waisted years of research that was based on its findings

[@jgesselberty]

As with the early studies on transgenderism. These poorly done and fraudulent studies are still being quoted to manipulate the narrative.

[@sideways5153]

*cough* evolutionary psychology *cough cough* IQ *cough* phrenology *cough wheeze cough*

[@FrancisReyes]

And moreover, a lot of retracted papers get citations even after being retracted. Sometimes as examples of, say, "what not to do", but also as supporting evidence.

[@sjisjsissk]

@@sideways5153watch your mouth

[@SusanStorm217]

Fraud occurs in science because 1. Its easy to do. 2. Academics is a power hierarchy 3.Peer review is not designed to catch fraud or bad science 4. Peer review is method to navigate the power hierarchy. 5. Political pressure 6. University pressure 7. Follow the money

[@brucefree8]

8. There is no real accountability making all the above possible: taking enormous risks, turning uncertainty into certainty with magic, ... 9. "Science" has gone far and wide beyond its own scope transgressing borders of politics, religion and economics where it should never have been 10. Science is confounded with technology. We can make things we don't understand. This gives undue credit to "advances of science" which are really advances in technological manipulation 11. "Science" is an intricate illusion from a fixed gaze of perceived progress like a Penrose stairs which explains why the pitfall is not noticed 12. Divorcing science from philosophy made all of the above possible.

[@Benjamin-xv9le]

11. publication bias

[@58s-]

On the money...well said🤚

[@xdrowssap4456]

Scientific research is now more about eminence than it is about evidence. The power dynamics between institutions, journals and individual research also really exacerbate this.

[@elgatofelix8917]

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts" - physicist Richard Feynman

[@j_h_o]

Now imagine an AI using their "research" as training data and then offering decision-making scenarios that are possibly life-altering based on complete lies.

[@jumperpoint]

Which is why AI won't be useful until it learns enough to evaluate it's inputs and integrate new inputs with older pretrained networks. As it is you can train a LLM to be a flat earther, know sociology but nothing about religion, or to be unable to separate fiction from nonfiction. But you can't train it to become more that it is without retraining pretty much the whole model.

[@robertjan002]

We are here already. Minus AI.

[@michasosnowski5918]

This is why its crucial that negative studies be published. If they are not, then whats the point of using AI?

[@jumperpoint]

@@michasosnowski5918 it's not just AI. Anyone with real world experience knows nothing ever always goes as planned. Some of these studies have to be intentionally misleading people. But there's no way to tell which ones.

[@ACuriousChild]

@@jumperpoint AI will not LEARN anything but the cheating being taught by THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN ... promoting it as its saviour!

[@jwenting]

I graduated physics (specialising in nuclear physics) in 1996. While doing my graduate research the team in the next office over was trying to get a paper published, the exact topic is irrelevant but it obviously also involved nuclear physics. They found it impossible to publish, no publication would accept their paper, which was reviewed and reviewed again many times and found accurate by all reviewers. The problem? The conclusions from the research didn't match the political and ideological agenda of the publications' sponsors, groups like Greenpeace and various countries' green parties and anti-nuclear lobby groups. They were told this quite bluntly by major publishing houses like Reed-Elsevier (name just an example), and told that unless they 'adjusted' their data and conclusions to match "properly acceptable conclusions" they would never be published. This team took the moral high ground and refused to budge, many others would do as told and choose fraud over being turned into obscure unknowns.

[@SannaJankarin]

Îs there any way to find that paper? As a person interested in nuclear Physics, I would love to know more. Their attitude was repulsing and capitalism is absolutely horrible.

[@jwenting]

@@SannaJankarinI don't know, it was performed in cooperation with the Russian academy of sciences. They probably have it in their archives somewhere, but I doubt this is the era to gain access to those :)

[@jazerasor1455]

And now after decades of that fraudulent research compounding on itself, governments use it as a pseudo religion that is completely unquestionable unless you're an "expert." And if you are, and you happen to be counter to the narrative theyre trying to propagate for control and profits, you don't exist. Then people turn around and tell you to "trust the science" or just call you a "science denier" which at this point is starting to remind me of "heretic".

[@grahamstrouse1165]

That’s so bloody infuriating. Nuclear power is the only mature technology we have that can produce reliable, cheap, and CLEAN energy. Anyone on Team Green who disavows nuclear power is either a grifter or an idiot.

[@TK-en2hq]

The burying of nuclear technology and research is one of the worst crimes in human history.

[@layne3530]

Also I think it's worth noting how easy it is to categorize a study as "peer reviewed". You can't trust a study just because it's labeled peer reviewed. You have to actually understand who is reviewing and how they are connected because the fraud is all connected.

[@horusreloaded6387]

I met someone online, someone with PHD in architecture, teaching at a public university. She outright told me how she published her relatively simple assignments college, recommending her friends as peers for peer review so she can satisfy the government's publishing criteria to get the position which was guaranteed to her anyway. And it is not uncommon in my country, so many international articles specifically talk about my country's cases lmao, that bad... And it is basic academic fraud, that is rampant in my country. Intention isn't to get awesome results but just meet the publication criteria to advance in your career. From what I see, she actually loves her field and does not slack in her research, but also "plays the game" when needed because that is literally what everyone is doing and expected to do. (so many positions are determined within the university already but public universities have to release a formal job ad with criteria to meet, which is often just copy pasted credentials of the person. Like they literally write the name of their thesis and say "should've researched X" and sometimes it is laughably specific.)

[@plrndl]

I strongly suspect that most "peer reviewing" consists of checking the index to ensure that the reviewer's paper has been referenced, and the name is spelt correctly.

[@ninjagirl226]

If the peer reviewing the paper is even who they say they are. I’ve heard of professors giving papers to graduate students to review for them.

[@Dragrath1]

To add to this beyond deception sometimes part of the problem is the amount of effort involved in peer review being limited in rigor perhaps because researchers are stressed for time between classes the need to write research proposals for grant funding managing grad students and their own work. In academia scientists are expected to do so much work often for limited pay with the threat of losing your job with publish or perish. A good example of a prominent area of research which looks increasingly to have a serious potential problem is cosmology as the conditions to meet high statistical significance without assuming a model mean such work is currently beyond most of the field and often it can be forgotten what implicit assumptions are being made and what biases may get fixed into those models ultimately throwing data off. If lots of work has been built on top of such biases this can create scenarios where the field as a whole feels under attack by such work. Sabine's interview with Dr. Sarkar is a great example of research where a Noble Prize is involved making the response to aggressively attack criticism even if it is rigorous data analyses stands out kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGLQqIyuoM2Am5o Notably here is the response when faced with evidence that the data analysis of the initial supposedly Nobel prize winning work is problematic to say the least. And with follow up work by Nathan Secrest et al 2021 which uses the requirement that the CMB dipole be purely kinematic for Lambda CDM to be valid to perform a falsification test using a sample size of 1.36 million quasars to construct a dipole that can be compared to the CMB to check whether it is statistically within the measure of uncertainty given identical in magnitude and direction to the CMB dipole. The initial results found a whopping 4.9 sigma discrepancy more or less falsifying the underlying assumption for the observable universe forcing one to return to the general inhomogeneous and anisotropic cosmology where everything is irreducibly nonlinear and no analytical solutions exist. Unsurprisingly looking at the expected kinds of outcomes for such a universe based on supercomputer simulations it can be mathematically proven based on the proof by self contradiction provided in Matthew Kleban and Leonardo Senatore's work on Inhomogeneous and anisotropic cosmology (Matthew Kleban and Leonardo Senatore JCAP10(2016)022) that in the large scale limit the observed acceleration of the averaged rate of expansion is indeed going to be positive regardless of the choice of cosmologicalconstant for reasons related to needing to ensure that the Einstein field equations are internally self consistent. SO to Summarize "dark energy" has a very high likelihood of being an artifact of using an invalid approximate model to drastically simplify the Einstein field equations beyond what is allowed by the laws of multivariate differential calculus.

[@NondescriptMammal]

@@ninjagirl226 Well supposedly a "peer reviewed" journal has experts on the subject who screen the submissions before publication. But who knows how thoroughly it is vetted? The only real worthwhile peer review is when other scientists independently replicate the research or experiment to confirm or refute the results.

[@CH-Wisdom]

Even allowing professors to insist you purchase their books for university courses opens the door to fraudulent teaching and conflict of interest.

[@skaylingop9673]

Only time I’ve ever been ok with this practice was the college required every class to require a book (even if they weren’t going to use one.) The professor created the simplest book he could and charged as little as he could. Then, he also emailed us as soon as he could telling us we didn’t need the book and not to buy it. The one person, in our class, that did buy the book, he pulled out his wallet and bought the damn book back from them. - absolute legendary human and probably my favorite professor for both class material and life. It’s ridiculous that it even had to come to that point. The entire college book fiasco is completely asinine as well.

[@williamjenkins4913]

By book do you mean 50 printer pages stapled together?

[@monkeybarmonkeyman]

@@skaylingop9673Hah... you've never visited or attended a community college, have you? Book sales are there to supplement incomes.

[@joshuab2437]

It's those eyes. Just his eyes tell everything, they were psychopathic.

[@peterfireflylund]

How else would you teach a non-introductory course in a fast-paced field?

[@SedonaPerioCO]

I watched a prominent dental researcher delete information right in front of me that failed to support our hypothesis. Not even an attempt to hide it. I became very skeptical of research that day. I haven’t changed my mind. That was 20 years ago.

[@cerealport2726]

I work with a relatively well published geochemist (not in academia though) who regularly deletes datapoints that do not yield the results they want. I tried to discuss this with him in a polite way, and the only response I got was "You don't have a PhD like me, so you don't know anything about science". I "only" have a 4 year bachelor of science...

[@Rampart.X]

@@cerealport2726 PhD programs are basically long job interviews with Establishment science.

[@DipayanPyne94]

​@@cerealport2726 He committed the Appeal to Authority Fallacy.

[@ACuriousChild]

@@cerealport2726 Don't get discouraged though pointing towards THE TRUTH, in EVERY WALK of life... THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN has overwhelming numbers of DISCIPLES and the more notorious and the more accolades - issued by THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN itself to signal status (not to be confused with knowledge forget about truth) - they carry as a smokescreen the more cautious one should be about what they are spewing into the world. Never let yourself be fooled into agreement overwriting a doubt signal... truthful traveling!

[@Emidretrauqe]

@@cerealport2726 I've been starting to view modern science as an adoptive religion for the dispossessed the older I get. And I'm an atheist...

[@stuartreynolds9297]

Elizabeth Bik deserves enormous credit for unearthing many many science fraud cases, including the stanford one.

[@socialneuro]

You’re right! I should talk about in a future video.

[@ajh3301]

This doesn’t just happen in academia. I worked for a fortune 500 company in research. The pull to report good results and play down bad is huge. This happens at the lowest levels. No one wants to document a mistake made.

[@ryanstephen120]

We know, but when it happens in academia the resulting deception can be far more widespread and devastating. For example, everything that a company says is already regarded by the average Joe as marketing material, we take it with more than just a pinch of salt. On the other hand, anything a scientist publishes is immediately presumed true by the same average Joe because "science has proven it". Of course, you could reply that all of us should simply become more skeptical and regard scientific publications in the same light as an advertisement for the sponsors of the study, but if it comes down to that then honest scientific research can almost entirely lose its value to society.

[@marianhunt8899]

And the AI will be making life and death decisions based on these fraudulent and fake datasets.

[@FPSIreland2]

Oh definitely. I also worked in a fortune 500 company in their engineering department and senior engineers would do the same to keep the operation running smoothly, until something couldn't just be ignored.

[@ordinarylady157]

There are a few trends that I noticed as a graduate student in science that I think can create the conditions for fraud. The first is obviously "publish or perish," which most scientists are well aware of. The second is the feudal relationship between postdocs, tenured professors, and grad students. As a grad student, you rely on your advisor to graduate, and more likely than not their word determines a lot of what your career prospects after graduation will be. Truthfully, there is a lot of pressure even in the best of circumstances to just nod your head and do exactly what your advisor says, regardless of if you think it's dodgy or incorrect. The third is that, to be honest, academia is rife with egotism, and the trend only gets worse as you climb higher up the ladder. I can think of multiple faculty members off of the top of my head who were textbook narcissists, and even those who weren't still engaged in destructive and abusive social behavior on a shockingly regular basis. We have this perception that academics are harmless, shy nerds, but in fact many of the ones I have met have god complexes that would rival the most paranoid of European kings, and the problem tends to get worse the more obscure or "difficult" (an extremely subjective judgment, all things considered) their chosen field happens to be.

[@user-bl7oe2md4p]

Trust God not sinful humans, which is why we always have to cross check(funny how the phrase includes the word cross) and test every scientific claim and result. Science is becoming a kind of religious faith, this is an offense to authentic spiritual religious faith and truth and a perversion and distortion of science.

[@matriarchalprayerproject]

really good insight

[@crabby7668]

Fauci and Co?

[@KucheKlizma]

If someone is in a shit field, doing jack all it's not entirely unsurprising their ego might get fragile or maybe that's what attracted people with fragile egos to begin with. Either way it sounds like something that might occur organically. And with stuff like tenure it's hard to break the strong chemical bond of mutual abuse. But then again just because someone has an overactive ego doesn't necessarily mean they are bad at their job or engaged in fraudulent practices, it could mean a lot of different things.

[@Kosac07]

this, well said

[@unonnuimuorica]

There should be zero tolerance for fraud or highly questionable research. Science doesn't need cheater, and the scientists that do should seek a different career.

[@nocturnomedieval]

I wonder which other one... maybe in banking and trading?

[@spoonikle]

@@nocturnomedieval -Spiritual healing retreats or maybe cult?

[@janglestick]

good luck distinguishing this from studies that are controversial. the MUCH bigger problem has been control over perfectly valid results that contradict economic gain. the idea that youre going to somehow address the entire academic and industrial science application process and then at the end apply a morality "no questionable research" at the end? Maybe rethink how anything actually happens.

[@Bambotb]

Most research is wrong

[@VeganSemihCyprus33]

The "elite" is fooling and enslaving you with technology 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖

[@robertmadeo7672]

The head of the physics department tried for two years to publish a paper that clearly refuted one of the most quoted sociology studies in one of the top psychology and sociology journals. Never got published. The system is totally broken. Several sociology researchers around the world repeated the same mistakes as the original publisher. No one understood the physics involved.

[@Hierarchangel]

I think the problem is growing, which would indicate that we need higher penalties for fraud in science. Like you said, these con-artists only risk losing their undeserved jobs.

[@evilsheepmaster1744]

But seeing the penalties higher could 1) discourage honest scientists for doing science for fear of being penalized for a bad (but not fraudulent) study, and 2) encourage bad actors to accuse colleagues of fraud in order to drive them out and increase their own standing in the field. This is likely why harsher penalties aren't already implemented

[@frauZweifel]

I think that the real solution is to foster the culture where the negative results are also rewarded, where an interesting hypothesis opens the door to the top jornals even if it was proved to be wrong

[@willymakeit5172]

I teach geology at a small college, and this is what I warn my students about every semester. Thanks for posting.

[@sunjewel9064]

This is highly commendable for someone in your field.

[@julessantana643]

Imagine all of the fraud that could possibly be happening in pharmaceutical science.

[@FFTS]

I wouldn't doubt most of it is fraudulent. I have been researching that quite a bit since 2020 and they started out by using a media campaign to destroy all of the homeopathic and naturopathic doctors, calling them quacks and snake oil salesman. They wanted to be the only option. The amount of illness and death they have caused with their "medicines" is horrific.

[@LastTrueElk]

Possibly? 😂

[@sueladybird6923]

I think its a god given that it is happening on mass... they will not let 'results' stand in the way of profits!!

[@NaturalMystic71]

🤣🤣🤣

[@youtuber7186]

Capitalism lmao

[@Oscabellai-pd1oh]

I applaud the students brave enough to speak out. That must have been daunting.

[@sanjaybhatikar]

During the course of my PhD, I routinely observed Professors marketing their labs with tall promises to lure investors and leaving researchers under tremendous pressure to deliver. Mistakes were made and it was the rare grad student who owned up. The situation is even more stressful for foreign students on a visa who are vulnerable to abuse from the Academic Advisor. In a way, this is a version of what has happened to journalism with once-reputed brands like the New York Times descending into narrative -building and only reporting facts that fit the narrative for their wealthy backers. Sometimes, we need to raze the system to the ground and start over.

[@DouglasLippi]

No system will work without virtuous people. It's people and our culture that need to improve.

[@ic7481]

​@@DouglasLippiExactly. Society can only ever be as good as the people who make up society.

[@currentbatches6205]

"...In a way, this is a version of what has happened to journalism with once-reputed brands like the New York Times descending into narrative -building and only reporting facts that fit the narrative for their wealthy backers..." The NYT featured Walter Duranty, apologist for Stalin in the '30s; a good rep is long, long past.

[@Welank]

Not only fraud, but something that shocked me when I attempted (and left) a PhD program was the amount of absolutely useless papers. I had read a lot of papers before the program, but I had only been reading the best ones. There are mountains of papers that are virtually useless and the authors know it (at some level) as well. They are just useful enough to get an off-hand citation by some of the lab's friends, but not much else. But if you don't keep the paper factory going, you lose funding. I think incentives in academia need to be drastically changed, but that isn't my fight. (Incentives for teaching professors are also really messed up, but that is a different topic).

[@socialneuro]

I think the modal number of citations for most research papers is 0 or 1!

[@squib3083]

Excellent presentation on this topic. As a fellow scientist I am tired of the nonsense about how fraud is this super rare event. It’s not. Way more of what’s published is made up than most want to admit. It’s pretty depressing for those of us who are honest scientists and often end up publishing in less flashy journals.

[@Shay416]

Jesus this is depressing. How are people supposed to know what to believe and trust? Then it just becomes about who's the best liar which is why things seems to be getting worse.

[@johndoe......]

@@Shay416you research these things yourself, and you cross reference all data for aplicability, replicability, acuracy, relavence and relibility. "Think for yourself."

[@Tommy1977777]

Just think of students taking classes.

[@filiphavojic8045]

​@@Shay416Eh I don't think you have to worry, if it's fraudulent nothing useful will come out of it. So it's pretty much just waste of, usually taxpayer's, money.

[@purposefully.verbose]

@@filiphavojic8045 says the guy who seems way too comfortable spending my hard earned tax money on bullshit... :|

[@thelexicon7294]

In my experience, my University literally taught these bad practices to entire generations of its students. During my undergrad (in psychology), we had a requisite amount of “research papers” we needed to write for each course in order to be allowed to take that exam. These papers weren’t published in journals, of course, but this practice meant that an 18 year-old college freshman suddenly needs to write 20ish papers per semester in order to be granted the privilege of actually sitting an exam. They weren’t considered a part of the regular course load, they didn’t count towards your grade, they were a bonus. And why? Because very often the professor would assign topics that aligned with their own research topics (which, of course, would be published in journals) and just repurposed bits and pieces of their students’ papers. I remember at first I’d go out and poll people, harass my poor family and friends to fill out endless questionnaires and tests and answer my silly half-baked questions, then spend days meticulously feeding that data into Excel spreadsheets and SPSS and whatnot. And then one day in my final year, my Systemic Family Therapy professor summoned me into her office and said that I should “find another family” to poll (this time I used my best friend’s) because the data was messy. I remember sitting there with my ears ringing staring at my 40 paged paper that I now have to redo. So I went home and wrote a new paper about a family from a book I read at the time. (The book is called We Were Liars by E. Lockhart and centers around dysfunctional family dynamics.) I just answered the way I thought the characters would. And I submitted that paper instead. The professor gave me an A. And because by that point I was already severely disillusioned with everything, I walked out of her office, out of the building, and never set foot in it again. I considered writing her an email telling her this whole story hoping it would make her reflect, but I never did. I just walked out, found a job in an unrelated field, and never completed my degree. But I never stopped wondering how many of my former classmates who are now practicing researchers also succumbed to fabrications and data manipulation during our schooling and how that might be bleeding into their careers now. I hope I was the only one. But I very, very much doubt it.

[@ryanstephen120]

"because the data was messy" I think by "messy" she meant that the data appeared to contradict itself. When asked to fill out a survey, I can often see what the survey is trying to get at and find that if I answer every question with pure honesty, then the survey would interpret my answer as a contradiction of the previous answer. So the temptation is real (and I have fallen for it), to adjust my later answers so as not to appear to contradict my previous answers. This is due to the shallow nature of the survey and its assumptions of how people should fit into certain boxes. So if I do not fit any specific box, then my answers to certain questions will appear to contradict previous answers. In other words, it is highly probable that your best friend's family provided answers that did not consistently fit into any theoretical boxes in which they could be characterised, and thus did not provide any useful results needed to get those subsidies. A true scientist would respond to this by questioning their assumptions and admitting that there may be a broader spectrum or more boxes than what they are aware of.

[@curiouscalculator971]

It is called integrity...Either you have it or you don't.....Mistakes can be made but manipulation is not a mistake...

[@marianhunt8899]

You are forgetting pressure and circumstances. People NEED money to feed families and pay inflated rents. It's much easier said than done when your employer or institution puts enormous pressure on you for 'results' that they want. This is the way our horrible economic system works. It's easier to walk away if you're already wealthy, not so easy if you're struggling to pay the most basic of bills. Even if you change jobs, the vast majority of corporations and institutions behave the same way.

[@makylemur7019]

Publish or perish leads to crap science.

[@solarwind907]

This is a once in a blue moon phenomena. Most scientists take the scientific method seriously. They don’t fudge data to meet their expectations. I would say more often they are guilty of studying something to death because they’re getting funded to do it.

[@albertmockel6245]

exactly

[@GregMoress]

I'm a little on the fence about it. What you research should have, or lead to, practical application that benefits society, right? 'Publish' is just the much broader version of 'turn in your homework' -- Cause if I'm funding you, I want results, otherwise, go fund your own research. Can you see that side? Now on the other hand, if you researched something seemingly worthwhile and it turned up nothing of value, then the discovery of that dead end is itself a discovery.

[@Mikoshi700]

​@@GregMoressthe fundamental problem is that it's being funded by people who want a specific result. When some climate change organization funds climate science, they're not going to fund the same scientist if that scientist doesn't get the "right" result. Just like big pharma expects correct results. Scientists are just people. And people are not stupid when it comes to knowing what is expected of them, even if it's not explicitly stated. There is no good solution, because most funding is from those people looking for specific results, they wont pay if they dont get what they want.

[@integralmath]

"What you research should have, or lead to, practical application that benefits society, right?" For a definition of 'practical application' that is identical to 'knowledge', sure. You can broadly separate mathematicians into applied and pure. Applied mathematicians work in fields where they use their knowledge of mathematics to work on field-relevant practical applications; they want to make, or help make, the things go. Pure mathematicians, by contrast, do research on mathematical things for other reasons; viz, for the mathematics itself. Its intrinsic beauty and the intellectual challenge of working out the logical consequences of primitive assumptions and formal rules is mostly the ball of wax for them. Whether it turns out to be practically useful is not high on the priority list, if present at all. Yet, the work of pure mathematicians has a curious track record of the mathematics unreasonably proving itself useful to scientists and engineers. But that's just a case of the peculiar interests of some rather unusual folks gone good. It's an outcome they're happy to see, but which is ultimately not really the point. A more curt explanation of this not-exactly-dichotomous separation of this distinction was well-described by Andy Magid as pure mathematics and applied mathematics being a case in which applied mathematics subsumes pure mathematics (restyled as nonapplied mathematics), by which nonapplied mathematics can be defined as being not-necessarily-applied mathematics. @@GregMoress

[@waynesworldofsci-tech]

Beautifully done. I’m an anthropologist, faking fossil finds is harder, but people do fake measurements.

[@KAZVorpal]

What's more important is that tons of VALID research in anthropology has been silenced, because it went against the conventional wisdom. How much ground was lost because of the effective ban against publishing the mountain of data regarding pre-Clovis humans?

[@jennymisteqq5399]

As a woman, I can attest to people faking measurements.

[@-Thunder]

You can definitely get fake carbon dates. I had a friend that worked in a carbon dating lab. They knew the expected date of the dig and threw out samples that didn't come back matching what was expected. There's more to it, but so much stuff is dodgy when you dig into the actual details.

[@pyropulseIXXI]

the entire context of how finds are interpreted can easily be manipulated. We have tons of examples of anthropologists missing the mark by miles because they were stuck in their old paradigm. In fact, this occurs in every field, which is why Max Planck said something to the effect that science only progresses by the death of scientists

[@DOPEDOGTOPDOG]

I just had a good laugh , thanks a lot , sir . Anthropology is the most corrupt and intellectually bankrupt field of " science" it 's 100% pseudoscience , piltdown man , Lucy , every single "big" discovery was in fact revealed later to be a hoax , and yet every child still learns all about it in middle school ( when they don't have any critical thinking skill ) . Dinosaurs are a complete fraud invented by 2 hoaxers , owners of traveling freak shows and " human zoos" : Dinosaurs are a hoax ! , look it up : they only had a few tooth fragments : and they " deducted " the existence of dinosaurs from a few bone fragments , !!!!Every single dinosaur bone is in a vault and only hand selected professors ever see or touch them , all there is in museum is resin and plaster " casts " . Every single auction house like Sotheby's stopped auction sales of dinosaurs skeletons , because they were all fake . Every time an owner have his dinosaur bones expertised , it comes back as a a gross fake of powdered animal bones and glue . Dinosaurs are the perfect evidence that " Science " is absolute farce and that people will believe anything coming from a guy with a white labcoat and glasses . In reality this is just the same old oligarchs gaslighting us to push their agenda ( : " climate change" ...)

[@AliciaGuitar]

When i was a kid my bestie and i had a science project where we had to replicate an experiment involving running rats thru a maze and seeing if they could run it faster depending on the kind of music they heard. We worked hard building the maze and training the rats. Come experiment time the rats just refused to run the mazes 🤦‍♀️ we were normally kids who would NEVER cheat or lie, but we became desperate and just made up the data. We got an "A" and got praised and it was awful, but neither of us had the guts to come clean. I never trusted research studies because of that.

[@Shay416]

Whats crazy is you were a child and these are supposedly some of the most intellectual adults in society. These institutions are built on lies.

[@AbAb-th5qe]

@@Shay416 I think it should be remembered that the fraudulent studies are believed to be in the minority. Perhaps 2-14 percent? The trouble is not knowing which ones are or not. I think that's why including steps to reproduce any findings is so important. That way competitor teams can challenge them. However, at present reproducing findings isn't yet properly rewarded by academia.

[@LastTrueElk]

​@@AbAb-th5qeThat number is bigger.. Understanding how this world revolves around money and influence, you can easily assume that number is way bigger.

[@AbAb-th5qe]

@@LastTrueElk Hmmm. There is that whole 'wisdom of the crowd' thing that can be used to estimate such things. At a country fair, if people are asked to estimate the weight of a bullock and you take the average of all these estimates it'll be very close to the true weight.

[@keirangrant1607]

Everywhere in the world you go, you'll find people that cheat a little or a lot. The field of science is no different.

[@cantkeepitin]

In EE and software engineering we do this: one creates a new design, another person tries to falsify it. There is so much reluctance to hide potential weaknesses.

[@socialneuro]

That’s a great strategy that could be done in psychology in many circumstances.

[@cantkeepitin]

​@@socialneuro😊The reality in Electrical engineering is that there is analog & digital. Analog is somewhat more regarded as an art, and often just one person is working for an IP. So here for lack of resources, the design & verification is in one person's hand.

[@jorgechavesfilho]

An honest man is not one who does the right thing when others are looking, but mostly one who does the right thing when no one is looking. Pressure and necessity do not corrupt people; they reveal people.

[@sirmclovin9184]

Well, perhaps, but at the end of the day we'd all be better off with a realignment of incentives. At the end of the day, scientists are not business people, but in the current system you have to be the latter before you can succeed at being the former. Support scientists, not "careers" I say.

[@Heyu7her3]

​@@sirmclovin9184 Many scientists are businesspeople

[@colleencourtney4484]

Amen to that

[@ACuriousChild]

@@sirmclovin9184 This has nothing to do with business or science ... confusing apples with oranges is the very core of ... TRUTH vs. LIE starting in the smallest corner of ALL EXISTENCE - your heart ... giving labels to something which don't apply is the proverbial "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" contrary to THE TRUTH!

[@ACuriousChild]

Thank you for putting the core of TRUTH vs. LIE into REAL LIFE perspective!

[@daveb4446]

I can totally believe this. In aerospace it’s extremely common to come across projects using blatantly misleading data. For instance, comparing aircraft at different altitudes or altitudes where one aircraft suffers power loss. Or by comparing different payloads or different test route profiles that are significantly more demanding on the other aircraft. In fact, I got banned from HBA for pointing out that someone had used intentionally misleading data to make their own project look superior.

[@feraudyh]

OMG, this has consequences for people's safety.

[@ACuriousChild]

THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN is everywhere, no matter what the walk of life....

[@user-tb6uj9hz6k]

Totally agree Can't compare the planes using 86 octane fuel to the planes using 130 octane fuel. WW2 fighhters, Bf 109, Fw 190, Zero, Oscar, Frank, George, ...using 86 octane fuel. The US/UK fighters using 130 octane fuel made them very good fighters in the war. But ...if talking about.. which ones are really one of the best engineering fighter planes. We must compare these planes by using the same octane fuel.

[@___DJ__]

This reminds me of Stock Rush and the Oceangate tragedy.

[@crypticnomad]

I've been thinking of getting some data scientists together and starting a nonprofit that looks into these kinds of things in objective and unbiased ways. This has been an issue for a long time and I'm personally sick of hearing about it. Academic institutions and journals don't really have an incentive to do honest and unbiased investigations into allegations of fraud but a watchdog group could create that incentive for them. What I mean is that these institutions can be given an ultimatum to either do a fair and unbiased investigation which is shared with the watchdog group or it will go public with what it has. I would say allow them absolutely no wiggle room; it is not an offer but instead it is a demand. The incentive it creates is that they want to avoid the loss of reputation and damage to their brand. Right now they have the same incentive but it goes the opposite direction.

[@LaurieWilliams-lk8fc]

I had a similar idea about 15 years ago when I spent a day starting to seriously look into the global warming hoax/scam - an independent organisation to track back through every detail of every scientific publication. Obvious problem would be that it would need funding, which means donors or sponsors, who could then exercise influence to corrupt the whole thing. Do you know of Steve McIntyre? He used statistical principles to expose the fraudulent science behind that hoax. Thomas Sowell picked it around 16 years ago: "'Global warming' is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible." Feynman knew about corruption and fraud in science, hence his "bending over backwards" comment. He would not be impressed with the present state of science.

[@Catzilla931]

When I was in graduate school one of the researchers was trying to repeat a prior experiment, but he couldn’t replicate the results. He went back to the original study and studied their methods. He even tried ridiculous adjustments like changing the beakers. Finally he called the original researcher to find where he had ordered the particular enzyme, or if he had synthesized it himself. The man confessed he didn’t use a refined enzyme. Since it was found in saliva, he simply spit into the test tube in an early stage of the experiment! In another instance, during my Father’s research for his Master’s degree. Again he was a poor lost lamb who couldn’t replicate the original data. After many attempts he actually dragged out the exact equipment used by the Doctoral student working (and getting) on his Ph.D. Dad found there was leak in the tubing and the original data was therefore inaccurate!

[@keithprice475]

Take away the 'publish or perish' pressure to start with, and find a way to reward academics for simply being really good teachers! The pressure to publish results in lots of very pedestrian or even more or less worthless papers clogging up journals. Tell academics to only publish when they actually have something worth saying!

[@hblee88]

All the more that greater education is received and achieved at colleges vs universities.

[@sirzorg5728]

publish or perish: the best way to force people to churn out meaningless drivel instead of useful research.

[@nightangalesweet9239]

I believe it is all business. Publishers, equipment selling companies, and academicians have cooperated in this business🤔

[@marjaangroenewald4750]

I agree

[@Shay416]

I thought this was how it worked. You mean to tell me these "scientific journals" are no better than an reddit post 😂

[@jccusell]

A dear friend of mine was a colleague briefly with Diderick Stapel. His scandal almost destroyed her entire scientific career. Luckily it was found her work was not affected. These cheaters are destroying careers of innocent people. Disgusting and so selfish.

[@ImpmanPDX]

Bobby Broccoli did an amazing deep dive in to the Korean cloning scandal. It's very much worth a watch.

[@kusy]

There is also a bias toward fraud being exposed only when it has a high impact factor.

[@marthamorton6470]

As a chemist who has had a paper retracted, monitoring students and making sure that all agree on the interpretation of the data is important. After 12 years I'm still upset with the student who committed the fraud.

[@darksoul624]

Maan that sucks

[@DOPEDOGTOPDOG]

Problems go far much deeper than this video will let you think : they are systematic : i would say 95% of what is called science today is just plain fraud . Here is the probllem whole fields are a joke :Egyptology , archeology , anthropology theoritical physics , , geology , seismology , sociology , psychology , economic science : All these fields are 100ù corrupt , and never have produced anything of value . other fields like history and social studies have been entirely captured by political activists .

[@dr.lexwinter8604]

Retractions are meaningless now. We've seen retractions issued for Nobel prize winners because they said that IQ is genetic, and another who said that there are only two sexes and it is biological. These innocuous statements that are, on the face, intrinsically unassailable facts were 'outrageous' enough for universities to revoke professorships, retract prizes, and papers from numerous people and destroy their life long careers for refusing the numerous opportunities during communist party style Struggle Sessions to recant their observed reality, much like Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth they chose to stand by what is true, and factual. The very foundation of modern science and academia has been dashed to the winds in the last decade with the amount of straight up politicization and dishonesty present in all fields.

[@rotulaman630]

Now imagine being the student with superiors doing that...

[@BlackSakura33]

​@@rotulaman630exactly. Their whole life is ruined.

[@DragNetJoe]

The obvious solution is to increase the status of replication. Any study that has not been replicated at least twice should be considered of no value. Yes, that means there should be at least 2x as many replication studies as original studies.

[@kulejoseph8766]

exactly, this think of relying on the fact that someone is from reputable institution is blind faith

[@garrettbiehle9714]

Most scientists know not to rely on a single study. Depending on the field, scientists often wait until a review paper comes along summarizing around 25 single studies. This cuts down on the effects of fraud.

[@smelltheglove2038]

Entire fields of study would disappear over night.

[@DragNetJoe]

@@garrettbiehle9714 That's affirmative testing and it's not good enough and is prone to group-think. Let's take the "wet sidewalk causes rain" hypothesis. No matter how many studies I do trying to confirm my hypothesis it's still garbage until I attempt to disprove my hypothesis.

[@brumpbotungus8425]

this is all well and good if you don't understand academia. replicating other work doesn't show anyone that you're creative and a good researcher. grad students and postdocs are already grossly underpaid and overworked; we don't have time to do things that don't further our career.

[@nickjnow1]

When I did my PhD, in automatic speech recognition, I tried to replicate the results of other papers. Much of the time I couldn't get the same results. I often emailed and asked for the copies of the scripts they ran but rarely got them often with lame excuses as to why. I found the whole thing quite disheartening.

[@csqr]

I came to academia from industry, and have always found it fascinating how academics think they’re above conflicts of interest. “Publish or perish” is itself a conflict of interest. The only solution is open science, and not getting overexcited about studies that have not been reproduced or replicated.

[@brianarbenz1329]

A quote variously attributed to Mark Twain, Harry Truman and others sums up the pressures that can lead to academic fraud: “Great things can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets credit.”

[@bonsummers2657]

Thanks for sharing.

[@geraldbouvy1222]

Yes!! Look at the polio vaccine! The dude gave it away!!

[@theduckfromthejoke152]

That's not the same thing... That is If anything more related to academic theft... But the key is that something is actually getting accomplished it's not fake

[@headkicked]

​@@theduckfromthejoke152 A more astute quote, also attributed to Mark Twain, would be: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

[@ACuriousChild]

This wisdom applies to TRUE LIFE in general!

[@matta.5363]

My Italian brother-in-law got his PhD in French Lit. from the U. of California. He once told me that all he had to do was "bullsh-t" his way through one class after another. His attitude toward higher education in America was that it was, unlike in Europe, an exercise in mainly faculty politics and administrative propaganda.

[@PeopleAlreadyDidThis]

I knew a guy just like this. Totally unserious, he never prepared anything, but he had a natural ability to BS in speech or writing. He got A grades in every PhD seminar for spouting nonsense-fluently.

[@SannaJankarin]

This is absolutely disturbing.

[@LNVACVAC]

The same thing happens in "europe" and in latin america, althoug in europe it's less pervasive in ex-communist countries.

[@violinhunter2]

This is why I love art forgers - they expose the "experts." Government people do this all the time - they start with a social agenda and then throw out or ignore all the data that does not support it. After all, they pay no price for being wrong. Integrity and dignity are not the same thing - a scientist can look dignified but his integrity can be as shallow and dishonest as a three dollar bill.

[@michaelwillis5040]

There's also "Publish what we want or perish" which seems to be how grant money in some fields is distributed. Much of this is related to the alliance between government and science which happened during WWII. The ties have grown even stronger ever since and often leaves one wondering if it's science or politics.

[@kati14h]

When I was working on my PhD and had just started writing up a joined paper with another lab, I remember my supervisor asking me to get the processed data cleaned up as he would probably need to send it over for open access, too. It was the first paper I was working on, so I thought I'd misunderstood and he was after the raw data. My reasoning was that if journals were looking to confirm the results they would need the raw data, because surely anyone could manipulate the processed data?! Well no, as it turns out no one is actually interested in your raw data. That and seeing how nonchalant researchers were about "revising" their exclusion criteria after the fact was what made me decide then and there I wasn't going to continue in academia. I'm sorry to be blunt but if you show me a paper, I automatically assume it's fraudulent unless you can also point me to successful replication studies. Nuff said.

[@swissdude7653]

Nature Communications, for example, requests all raw data files to be submitted.

[@donjindra]

Exactly. I also assume a paper is fraudulent or manipulative unless there is replication of findings with the same methodology and differing methodologies.

[@sunway1374]

Fraud in the industries is probably worse? Lying to customers, share holders, colleagues, and bosses. Cutting corners. Real impostors. Corruption. Exaggerating financial health of companies. Etc.

[@drdubious2432]

Well, now I’m even more confident than ever that I can trust my doctor and the media when they insist that all the medications and behaviors they promote are “safe and effective”.

[@projectbirdfeederman5491]

safe and effective for getting to "carbon neutral", and we are the carbon to be neutralised. The darklords love their double entendres.

[@sabinesa08]

Ĺove it 😂

[@tthomas184]

Looks like someone never learned to read the small print on medications , or listen to the endless warnings about side effects during commercials.

[@FriggaRedSkye]

I'm glad someone said it.

[@johndoe......]

you can tell how good a doctor is based on the gifts patients bring them. my doctor has like a thousand gifts on his walls. This is because people who a cured are generaly greatful.

[@robertbeisert3315]

Biggest problem I have is that the studies will be paywalled, the data will never be published, and the contradicting data will never be exposed. Ancel Keyes had his 7 nations study blown out by dozens of researchers when it was published. Most of us, even the professionals in nutrition and medicine, didn't even hear about the other 14 nations he discarded until a decade ago.

[@tonyk438]

University of Minnesota has been accused of doctoring images in Alzheimers research. The drug companies, supposedly, started asking why their drugs were having the desired physical effects, but symptoms were not improving. Its been confusing to me what happened with the investigation, though.

[@1LaOriental]

John Ioannidis wrote a paper discussing the unreliability of most scientific research due to financial conflicts of interest; blind spots and biases. I approach them with skepticism.

[@davidgmillsatty1900]

He also wrote a paper called”Odds are it’s wrong.”

[@sciagurrato1831]

Dr Ioannides, a luminary of the highest level who questioned the Covid narrative early in 2020 based on deep analysis of the Princess Cruise line (“a locked room”), is, ironically, at Stanford.

[@skepticalfaith5201]

@@sciagurrato1831 That was certainly a result which couldn’t be explained by the approved narrative

[@sciagurrato1831]

@@skepticalfaith5201 the point is that JI did the only rigorous analysis of an isolated cohort in a covid19 environment. His work was ignored completely by the “experts”. This is the world we live in. Take the necessary steps to protect yourself.

[@hiredgoon13]

Saw this at my university during my PhD, and it was rewarded and overlooked. One of the reasons I left the program. The worst one was running and re running simulations till the result was found that met the hypothesis of the funding org, and the papers never indicated the number of time it was re run(100s) to get this single data result.

[@DrDeuteron]

when you pick your seed, the numbers aren't random anymore.

[@CapitanNaufrago]

Saw this by my professors over and over as a PhD student. It made me sick. I left too.

[@michasosnowski5918]

Just wow.

[@ACuriousChild]

@@nobody7158 ... CULT/IDOL WORSHIP describes it even better ...

[@user-ts8ec7mm7u]

This was also the reason I left my PhD program. My PI would play with the statistics until he got meaningful results- he would call it a form of art even though everything that lab did went against everything I was ever taught about statistical analysis. It's not worth putting your reputation on the line for an individual who is using you to get ahead in his own career. I would also meet other grad students during TA training that couldn't use lab equipment like a volumetric flask correctly, used wrong glassware for measurements, and had such poor lab skills that it made you wonder how the hell they ended up in a PhD program. I was a computationalist, but even I knew exactly how to do wet lab techniques properly. The other students would be 3rd or 4th year students who had published work using those same skills that were covered in our TA training, and it made no sense how they even got publishable results when they couldn't do really basic chemistry takss. There's just no way they're doing high quality research with skills that are that poor, and I'm positive their PIs never properly trained them on lab techniques.

[@TekedixXx]

When the director of Harvard Medical (paraphrased) said "50% of our knowledge about medicine is wrong, and it's our job to figure it all out" I wasn't expecting it to actually be fraud. lol

[@gullydantes5607]

I have worked in catering with PhD. students from Warwick University . Some have told us that cheating to get a PhD was very common. Actually, I remember one of them called Stephanie, who told us she had cheated. But it was OK because everybody did it. Scarry stuff .

[@anthonymonge7815]

As someone who is finishing their PhD, this upsets me. I work so hard to make sure my data and procedures are above-ground. Someone who knowingly submits a fake report should have their ability to submit future work revoked.

[@paulbarclay4114]

the entire western medical system is a scam its ALL pseudoscience at best, or a cult at worst same with "climate science"

[@asumazilla]

Just take care when you read a paper, self deception and group think are close seconds to fraud.

[@JoeOvercoat]

Revoked *forever*.

[@ballhawk387]

And the most disgusting part is that such ethics could get you in trouble if your research could have an undue impact on corporate profits.

[@anthonymonge7815]

@@ballhawk387 or research in health leads to a wrong diagnosis and kills someone.

[@Ratkill]

The more tragic aspect of dishonest researchers is the public campaigns they'll wage against other researchers if it contradicts their own. So many denouncements from the media savvy (and therefore attention seeking) scientific community are rabid in their critique of potentially groundbreaking research when it comes from individuals or organizations outside the clique. How many advancements have we lost to lack of funding because these people chose to attack an opposing researcher without the access to media?

[@ACuriousChild]

Your lament is completely comprehensible but THE TRUTH has its own way to come to LIGHT ... pursuing it is THE VERY CHALLENGE THE TRUTH has put before its GATES - IRONIC that the latter is the VERY EPITOME of the opposite of THE TRUTH/LIFE

[@jndking9419]

Just like they did to drs during the pandemic who said ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine would help alleviate Covid symptoms.

[@FFTS]

....and still people are villified if they are skeptical when a pharma company says, "It's safe and effective".

[@JoshuaFinancialPL]

worked with one of my professors in my first job. watched her fabricate every scrap of a study paid for by a benign food manufacturers trade association. invented out of thin air. $25k in her pocket plus a tax deductible trip abroad. instantly red pilled.

[@AnitaCorbett]

Keep exposing these cases so that we can clean up the science field

[@elgatofelix8917]

When it comes to these kinds of cases, unscrupulous entities like the CDC, and the WHO should be at the top of this list, along with their accomplices Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[@038Dude]

I know there's way more disagreeable people listed here, but man o man do I hate deGrasse, pompous loud mouth asshole mooching of off Sagans legacy. You should watch the interview he did with Rogan, even Rogan starts rolling his eyes at a certain point because he just can't shut up.

[@piman9280]

Weeds are a common feature in most fields.

[@mapu1]

Lol its all corrupt. The problem goes so deep no one has the time to expose it. Plus they come after you if you do it to wrong person.

[@jacob9673]

@@elgatofelix8917You’re mixing up things like psychology/neuro with fields like Chem/physics. Also we can reproduce most of the vaccine research conspiracy theorists are freaking out about. In fact, the original paper that tried to link vaccines was retracted because it had fraudulent data.

[@carlosw1687]

When I was doing my master degree I read several papers in order to learn more about my topic and see if I wanted to pursue PhD (engineering). Then I noticed several papers ended up with a phrase like this " the author considers that results presented in this paper might need to be tested under different scenarios and initial conditions before drawing a conclusion. The author strongly suggests more research about this topic is needed". After discussing this with several doctoral students they confirmed what I thought: a lot of people kind of "fragment" their research topic into tiny subtopics that are easier to deal with because it involves lost of artificial conditions that can be easily controlled but in entails a lot of simplification to the point that any result might be merely an academic excercise with no no practical value. In addition, this atomization of topics into subtopics gives you an opportunity to do more research and get funding for it

[@Lakshyam9]

Partly the reason why it is easier to do research in science

[@MrWave58]

This is "only" one indicator, how rotten this society has become. Not very long and these houses of cards crumble completely.

[@RoryT1000]

As a recent graduate, i was alarmed by the extent to which the attitude of "who are we to judge/complain" of the faculty and students ran so deep. The deterioration of the quality of research, the ineptitude of many to interpret let alone understand the literature and a culture of ostracism of whoever complains. Finally the bullying. Just straight intimidation from the tip down. Who would ever want that!

[@enkephalin07]

Intellectual arrogance is a fair predictor of intellectual dishonesty.

[@socialneuro]

I agree.

[@evangelicalsnever-lie9792]

The bible is full of intellectual' arrogance and heresay. Which is is why it should be criticized.

[@enkephalin07]

@@evangelicalsnever-lie9792 Are you sure about that? Have you read the bible, or have all the misquotes, misattributions, and general abuse of the text made the bible the source of the fault?

[@evangelicalsnever-lie9792]

@@enkephalin07 Yep, I'm sure. It's a real POS just like those who think it isn't. But hey, if you wanna be like a toddler and believe in things like; talking snakes, magic trees, talking burning bushes, talking donkeys, talking clouds, 900 year old men, Magical Boat in Magical Storm, Bakery Goods Falling From The Sky and Water-walkin' magical woo wizards who zap trees, part seas, and poof magical party wine into existence… …then have at it and continue to prostlitize and try to convince the world to join you in your weak mindedness, religious sheeple herd mentality - knock yourself out.

[@DudeSoWin]

Good we could use some more dishonesty in order to bypass Truism and find real Truth. Its a valuable tool to poison degeneracy and scalp that data forcibly. After all what does anyone care about the butt dialed opinions of one-liners anyway. If you are not capable of deceit, you are not smart but stupid. Prediction correct, yet it did nothing for you, try again at another Pyrrhic victory pounding sand with unfounded morals.

[@ericnull3470]

i gave up on my academic social science dreams when i got my psycology degree. Not only was i seeing insane/impossible research being posted up and celebrated in the social science building (where i worked during my last 2 terms), but my eyes were opened in one of the final courses about advanced research. We learned about r value, and ill never forget, how to alter your experiment if you dont get the result you want. How to change sample size to impact r-value. How to manufacture results...even if your first "try" doesnt go the way you want. It ate at me until i graduated. This... is not science. I also very much felt like actual scientific discovery was a distant idea and pushing narratives or proving political points was the actual goal. I saw it everywhere and after learning how to evaluate papers based on their methods... I couldnt believe how many were probably fake. I didnt have it in me to fight the politics or go into massive debt to be part of an industry I, now, kind of resented. Its all such a shame, really. I almost cringe at the phrase social "science" these days. I know some are fighting the good fight, but id bet the depth of pseudo scientific papers goes far deeper than many would think.

[@parikshitghosh2682]

have you written down or recorded audio or video about these anywhere.

[@patriciablue2739]

Yes, this

[@glendavansickle7592]

And we the people need you the honest one

[@MyMy-tv7fd]

same here bro. Around 1980 my pysch degree included the standard rubbish and lies about teaching apes to speak using ASL, while Prof. Herbert Terrace and his grad students (eg, Petito & Seidenberg, 1975, review of reviews), had already blown the whistle good and long and hard and debunked it all. Terrace was massively unpopular because the gravy train of research grants and media exposure had been derailed for bogus animal language studies. But the BS version was still being taught in the 1980s at Leicester University. The only reason I knew that it was false was that I instinctively did not believe my lecturer so I did a little digging thru the lecture references and soon found the Petito & Seidenberg paper which very negatively summarised all research up to 1975, proving that it was all hype and wishful thinking. Most psychological research cannot be replicated, a sad fact.

[@Heyu7her3]

I think it means it actually is science... science being something that is contextually true. Thus, truth is fallible.

[@user-zy1oh8jk7j]

Science has long been, maybe even always been, financially based on desired results. Now that doesn't mean everything is garbage. But like an unreliable news source (almost all), it means everything MUST be looked upon with suspicion.

[@toomignon]

The most brilliant part about the Levigne scandal was that the student reporter was a FRESHMAN/first-year with an undeclared major. That’s how obvious the fraud was.

[@maxw6887]

thanks for including not only the social science scandals, but also how fraud/fabrication happens in 'hard' sciences. with the recent scandal at Harvard, some commentators use the opportunity to suggest further defunding for soft sciences, while ignoring or not knowing that fraud happens across the whole scientific field.

[@ACuriousChild]

... mentioning funding points straight at the core of THE DISEASE ....

[@Keirnoth]

The soft sciences need to be defunded because they're being used to make POLICY DECISIONS and are influencing ideology at the highest levels of government. Anything with *Studies* at the end of the name needs to be heavily scrutinized until the self circlejerk of "peer review" is replaced with ethical academics. If you were on the receiving end of what some of these Studies has done to the mental health and discourse of our nation at this time, you would understand.

[@Redmenace96]

Would just assert that the RATE of fraud is much higher in soft sciences. anything of significance in phys and chem is reviewed carefully. tons of sociology and psych is just baloney that nobody cares to review.

[@elianedeschrijver4140]

If only it was university leaders that were held criminally accountable for the work of their 'superstars', and whistleblowers were *really* protected. Would things change?

[@alicianieto2822]

Or journal owners. Maybe they would even bother to pay peer reviewers

[@monroetruss4737]

I am an old man and I have found in life people often have formed their beliefs prior to doing research or any extensive study. Their desire is to prove what they assume to be true and often turn a blind eye to anything that disproves that and seek to prove their point. That's why blind studies are necessary, and not just one but several. We all have preconcepts than may be wrong. Takes a strong person to accept that.

[@robertbeisert3315]

Karl Denninger had a good idea for this, at least in pharma research. All medical research should be funded by the companies seeking approvals, but the research organization must be selected randomly from a large pool without being disclosed until after publication. This is to keep pharma and other interests from knowing who to manipulate. He also called for 20% extra in fees to cover research into off-patent drugs.

[@MrHailstorm00]

One solution is to encourage publishing negative findings. You may require more extensive study from neg-find papers to avoid being flooded with them. But publication shouldn't always be about finding sth. Not finding sth after reasonable effort should be valued too

[@gmylap7344]

💯

[@heblanchard]

Besides individual anecdotes, I wish we were even more generally alarmed about psychology's exposed "replication crisis" ...

[@robertjan002]

The replication crisis affects more than just psychology and extends to medicine and sciences as well.

[@mircopaul5259]

The replication crisis, reports about fraud, economical and political pressure and corruption etc. would definitely shock any healthy scientific community. But most of academia and the scientific world is more about power, money and business interests. It's much more widespread than most people think, that's why it isn't taken more seriously. And since politics has its hands in it as well mainstream media will never seriously call this out either

[@enricomassignani]

​@@mircopaul5259in the end, modern science is a business like any other.

[@34wetstoats]

psychology is barely a science so checks out

[@KakashiBallZ]

Coming from the chemistry field, I mostly see scientific misconduct done by grad students/postdocs working for professors running paper mills. In these groups, all the technical work, quality control, and grant/paper writing are outsourced to the students while the professor becomes a glorified editor. Having said that, paper mills target high impact-factor journals, so the professors demand high quality in addition to high quantity and this becomes a breeding ground for fraud. Typically the students resort to omiting citations that would otherwise sink their derivative work, whereas outright fabrication is reserved for more bombastic claims. This is a double-edged sword because the more bombastic the claim, the more likely others will try to reproduce it...and you end up with a similar situation to the Korean room temp superconductor fiasco. Are professors ultimately responsible? Abso-freaking-lutely! However, when they claim they had no idea fraud was happening in their lab, I believe they truly mean it - they simply don't recongnize their lab culture to be conducive to this behavior.

[@rbarnes4076]

For those that don't know.. this is actually part of a bigger issue science wide called the "Replication Crisis". The 'leaders' of this issue are the psychological community that has a HUGE issue with experimental replication, bad experiment design, etc... but issues like those highlighted in this video also contribute to this because it is bad science to begin with contributing to the lack of replication of experimental results. I was being trained as a biological researcher in college when I realized how political things were at that time (1980s).. I just didn't want to be caught in such insanity. The bottom line here is that science is built on the trust system, and it is clear from the experience of the last 30 years that science, just like all other fields has its bad actors. The only way to fix this is to make the process of publishing experimental results as rigorous as possible and the bar for publishing super-high. And that means science publications that are fully transparent and staffed by scientists whose only responsibility is analyzing/verifying papers submitted to the publication. But even with those measures, we are still talking about humans subject to being corrupted by money. So everyone in the process has to have fully public financial records so it is apparent when cheating is happening. It is sad.. but it is where we are.

[@theaureliasys6362]

It's almost like "if it passes peer review, it's fact" wasn't a good idea. And almost like having journals everybody wants to publish in so the journal is able to fleece everybody for access to those papers, was an even worse idea.

[@afernandesrp]

I worked in three different labs (Masters, PhD, and postdoc). Every single one of them had a “don’t touch project” (something that was already published and nobody could reproduce). Some had issues with individual experiments, others with the entire paper. In most cases the PI themselves would oppose that the project was further investigated. We only hear the the scandalous examples, there are thousands of occurrences that slip through the cracks.

[@terrencecescon102]

Very likely true

[@PhonkEcho]

@@terrencecescon102 People are scared of challenging (even in the slightest bit) the research of tenured, world renowned scientist because they can mess up your entire career. You can get fired and never find a job in that field again

[@cerberus50caldawg]

Corruption, coercion and control.

[@jjsc4396]

Note well: the president of Stanford wasn't even fired. He's STILL a full professor at Stanford! That says it all.

[@jimmefz3328]

this is why no science is ever settled, debate and scrutiny should always be welcomed and no one should ever be called "a denier" for doing so.

[@kevinbyrne4538]

The colleagues of these fraudsters MUST have known about the fraud: they were listed as co-authors. So those colleagues are also guilty.

[@VeganSemihCyprus33]

The "elite" is fooling and enslaving you with technology 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖

[@Samirustem]

Its common practive to just slam your name on papers you cant even start checking. Manufactoring publications would slow down lot if all co authors had to check all data

[@kevinbyrne4538]

@@Samirustem -- The supervisor works every day with colleagues and subordinates. He gets daily progress reports from them. Not only are their reputations at risk but so is his. That cheating is occurring in all of the sciences is an open secret. If a result seems too good to be true, it may not be true. Checking that is his responsibility. That's why he's the boss and they're not.

[@briang7030]

I don't understand how the reputation of Science and Nature don't seem to take a hit when so many papers they publish come out as false. I understand they can't be expected to replicate the study, but at this point are they even looking at the data or just the headline?

[@davewalter1216]

Science and Nature are in competition for the flashiest 'science'. That is their business model. The fact that the 'Emperors have no clothes' is beside the point - Science and Nature papers can be career makers. No one has an incentive to point out the scientific nudity, especially not once they have a paper or the hope of a paper there. This is widespread - take a prestige journal in a more specific field - The Lancet - it has survived numerous obvious fraudulent studies, many of a political nature, and an editor-in-chief who bemoans the state of fraud in medical journals. Yet it is still 'respected'.

[@Libertariun]

Don’t forget the Lancet.

[@DudeSoWin]

The headlines are often picked up by AI to guesstimate stock options. For example recently South Korea stated it discovered LK-99 a room temperature super conductor. That is a bullshit attack upon the economy.

[@John-uh8kl]

Obviously it's a boys club. It it sell, copies, increases funding, all around best results. Science is of course, secondary.

[@John-uh8kl]

​​@@Libertariunif it involves pharmaceutical companies, research, you're in no man's land,...!!!

[@caesilva9844]

Excellent video. I shared with academics in Brasil and friends here. Thank for addressing such subjects with clear comments.

[@Finn4thewinn]

I always thought it was sad but interesting how obsessed some scientists are with getting evidence to support their theories to the point of committing fraud, when even disproving a theory can be just as valuable and help move studies forward. Very interesting video! I also think if we could start seeing the positive benefits of failed theories/studies it would diminish the need for such falsification of data.

[@Svartalf14]

Thank you. I know that science fraud has been with us ever since we've had science, but I did not expect it to still be so widespread.

[@PhonkEcho]

Fauci leveraged the need for grants to force scientists to create a consensus around his cover ups. I'm not antiscience but its pretty clear that they are all humans at the end of the day

[@kristiblack4789]

Because good and moral people have difficulty grasping the depth of depravity that greedy, narcissistic and egocentric people are capable of! That's exactly why knowing history and the lesson's of history are supremely important to ALL of our collective futures!

[@joelwillems4081]

Science and grant money fraud is the worst. Little of the science done is useful or makes money. But a tiny amount done can be very profitable. So tons of blind cash is thrown at useless scientists.

[@lv4077]

Even more so now.We have a very finite funding group.The US is research for billions in many areas,especially climate science.They’re by far the largest contributor to the hoax so papers need to adhere to their orthodoxy .If you plan to receive any subsequent funding your study results better bolster government claims of catastrophic anthropogenic climate impacts.

[@AliciaGuitar]

Not only is it still happening, but it seems to be growing.

[@danielabbey7726]

I highly suspect that the focus of mis-directed Alzheimer's research on amyloid plaque and tau tangles for many years may have been affected by scientific fraud. Having lost my mother and mother-in-law to the disease, this is very personal!

[@John-uh8kl]

Very sorry, and yeah, read earlier today, these drugs do nothing to stop the disease/illness.

[@danielabbey7726]

@@John-uh8kl Big pharma spent many years going down a blind alley with drug development. Not to mention many millions spent and the lives lost in the meantime.

[@ifellicantgetup]

I haven't trusted research in a very long time. There is no valid way to tell who are the good vs. bad guys.

[@TheNinnyfee]

Universities and scientific papers should spend more money on fraud detection. It's embarrassing and undermines the trust we need to have in science.

[@justmenotyou3151]

I was at a departmental meeting at a university once (not my department) where they stated they were not going to challenge cheeters because they didn't have the time or backing to do it. Sends a good message on what you can get away with. Does not bode well for future researchers.

[@justmenotyou3151]

@ploopploopploopboop1887 It's part of the same world. If you cheat, keep cheating. It pays till you get caught if you get caught.

[@philcurtis8420]

One has to laugh. It appears that the British Government is doing research at Pilton Down on "virus X". Do they think we've forgotten Piltdown Man?😂😂

[@chinyinfoo3108]

Currently completing my master study in statistics. My research project supervisor have asked me whether I want to continue onto PhD. I briefly talked with my supervisor about the topics that I might want to do if I do PhD. But after brief discussion, I decided to not continuing to Phd. Why? Because during the conversation, I realised that all my supervisor thinks of is the endless amount of journal papers that could be churned out from PhD studies. My rant is not related to this video. I just want to say that It is sad and dehumanizing to equate Phd candidates to a piles of journal papers.

[@josephduenas4718]

This is an eye opener. I considered data having errors but never thought data being purposely misrepresented 😪😅

[@bluehorseshoe23]

This explains how it’s possible every toothpaste is recommended by 9 out of 10 dentists.

[@stischer47]

As a grad student for my PhD in Computer Science, I was lucky enough that my advisors were very supportive of MY research. However, I knew other PhD students who used undergraduates for research, especially international students, publishing the UG's research as their own. When I brought it up with the department, they could get none of the UG international students who were used to say anything. They were afraid they'd be kicked out of the university, even when I assured them that it wouldn't happen. Although there was little or no of the profs using students to do their research without adding them to the publication, but now it is rife.

[@sciagurrato1831]

Abuse of international grad students - already many murmurs are circulating - needs some serious journalistic investigation.

[@yemiojo2265]

Wow

[@st3ppenwolf]

If this happens, it's probably rare. I don't see too many undergrads trying to do PhD level research for kicks TBH. It's not something you can do in your spare time between undergrad coursework

[@sciagurrato1831]

@@st3ppenwolf what’s your institutional affiliation?

[@st3ppenwolf]

@@sciagurrato1831 Let's leave it at "Ivy League school"

[@anthonysanlucas6437]

Thank you for sharing this important information. Clearly, the consequences of postmodernism’s capture of the academies are becoming more apparent for those who still value truth and integrity.

[@zarhanfastfire3209]

Postmodernism has nothing to do with this.

[@kendannon4435]

Thank you for spreading the truth.

[@SP-ct2rj]

I remember a PhD student showing me his work and telling me how he modified the graphs to reduce the apparent differences in the y values (not deleting data but simply presenting it as having less variance). He told me it's quite common.

[@ernestmwape]

That is regularly done in econometrics to massage "data to fit theory"😢 i read a lot of journal articles without any primary data or their sources used to re-run experiments to vetify any claims

[@-Thunder]

Bill Gates used to reference the book "How to Lie With Statistics". You'll see it on the news every day once you start looking for it.

[@albertmockel6245]

Well I have average proficiency with statistics, but enough to be able to torture numbers enough so they will admit any crime.

[@crabby7668]

Try climate change temperature measurements where they always do this and call it anomalies. They never show the absolute temperature change above say zero C which would show the public how small these" emergency" temperature variations actually are.

[@MultiMshell]

Do you mean ...anomalies?

[@lourias]

Fraud in science is encouraged when a scientist has to PAY for their work to be published.... instead of research journals creating a line for publishing, perhaps they should re-test the work to see if they can duplicate the results. Expensive, sure, but we can weed out a level of stupidity .

[@socialneuro]

I agree!

[@connorperrett9559]

Journals charge scientists to publish...then they charge scientists to read them...and they charge the public even more to read them! What a grift.

[@Runeite51]

​@@connorperrett9559for further loss of faith in humanity, see: Aaron Schwartz

[@lourias]

@@connorperrett9559 the great double-whammy!

[@anthonyv6962]

​@@connorperrett9559That's why you should use SCI-HUB to read and DL research papers and journals that are usually behind a paywall. There is a community of people around the 🌎 who believe in the free and open access to knowledge therefore they liberate the scientific papers.

[@eleearts]

Thank you for bringing out the truth.

[@watchman2866]

Good video. I think most people suspect this goes on but are out of their depth to challenge it. What is the line between fraud and bias? Thanks for the book recommendation.

[@donaldsmith6814]

I'm 77 & I figured out that science people are just as likely to be phonies as any other group of people about the same time I hit high school. Long story but I was disillusioned by people who I was told were people to look up to & finding out how petty & uninterested in the truth most of them were!

[@abrasionequation4632]

Industry funded research tends to find the data that is desired, or said data disappears, and occasionally so does the person that found this data.

[@ThePowerMoves]

Great video and thank you for the book advice!

[@bthomson]

Great video! Interesting, important, well-spoken ( a very necessary part of making videos!) In language and data easy to understand. Thanks!