On July 10, 2014, the NY Times published an Op-Ed piece by
a trio of authors on what happens to fraudsters in science --
this seems like a good article to give to undergrads when discussing
whether scientific fraud and what happens to those who commit it.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/opinion/crack-down-on-scientific-fraudsters.html?_r=0
Of course, the tone is disappointing because many researchers who
are caught often have limited punishment (only one researcher has been
charged with breaking the law for committing fraud in exchange of
federal grant money).
Some additional sources on the issue of the role of fraud in
scientific research, see the Pubpeer website:
http://blog.pubpeer.com/
The entry for July 27, 2014 has this telling paragraphs:
|As followers of 'research social media' like Retraction Watch
|and the now-shuttered Science Fraud have already realized,
|the climate of distorted incentives has been exploited by some
|scientists to build very successful careers upon fabricated data,
|landing great jobs, publishing apparently high-impact research
|in top journals and obtaining extensive funding.
|
|This has numerous direct and indirect negative consequences
|for science. Honest scientists struggle to compete with cheats
|in terms of publications, employment and funding. Cheats pollute
|the literature, and work trying to build upon their fraudulent research
|is wasted. Worse, given the pressure to study clinically relevant
|subjects, it is only to be expected that clinical trials have been
|based upon fraudulent data, unethically exposing patients to needless
|risk. Cheats are also terrible mentors, compromising junior scientists
|and selecting for sloppy or dishonest researchers. Less tangible
|but also damaging, cheats spread cynicism and unrealistic
|expectations.
Here is a link to the journals that Pubpeer members have provided
comments to specific articles:
https://pubpeer.com/journals
Since Pubpeer operates as a "journal club" for discussion of articles,
the comments on an article point out what appears to be a problem
in method, statistical analysis, inference, and/or explanation.
Here is a statement about what PubPeer is about:
https://pubpeer.com/about
Here is a link to a FAQ for PubPeer:
https://pubpeer.com/faq
Note: In order to be able to post a comment, a person has to have
published a research paper AND have been either the First or Last
Author -- the first author indicates the person who had major
responsibility
for research and article while the last author, often in the biomedical
sciences, the head of a lab or a research project (in psychology this
practice is sometimes observed but historically, I believe, the last
author has bee interpreted as being the person who made the smallest
contribution; I've seen it both ways in psychology and psychiatry).
Here is an example from an article that appeared in the journal
"Psychological Science" which corrects an interpretation of a
statistical
test (i.e., treating a p= .058 as thought it were p=< .050 ad infinitum,
that is,
clearly statistically significant instead of "trending towards
significance")
see:
https://pubpeer.com/publications/59E8D58218F9C072B71D6107D12C4B
It should be noted that "Psychological Science" had 10 comments while
these "harder science journals" had more:
the "Journal of Cell Biology" had 15; see:
https://pubpeer.com/journals/J.-Cell-Biol.
the "Journal of Cell Science" had 20, see:
https://pubpeer.com/journals/J.-Cell.-Sci.
the journal "Endocrinology" had 20; see:
https://pubpeer.com/journals/Endocrinology
the "Journal of Immunology" had 36; see:
https://pubpeer.com/journals/J.-Immunol.
the "Journal of Clinical Investigations" had 40; (see:
https://pubpeer.com/journals/J.-Clin.-Invest.
the journal "Proceeding of the National Academy of Science-USA" had 115
https://pubpeer.com/journals/Proc.-Natl.-Acad.-Sci.-U.S.A.
(NOTE: a PNAS without USA has 20 comments)
the journal "Cancer Research" has 132
https://pubpeer.com/journals/Cancer-Res.
and the "Journal of Biological Chemistry has ***264***; see:
https://pubpeer.com/journals/J.-Biol.-Chem.
(The :"Journal of Neuroscience" has 20 comments).
Remember:
(1) A comment may or may not indicate a significant problem (e.g., a
difference in interpretation of a particular point) but there have been
cases where incorrect figures were caught or other significant errors
were identified,
and
(2) There are a few psychological journals present, I selected
Psychological Science because it has the highest number of
comments among traditional psychology journal (e.g., the
"Journal of Experimental Psychology General" had 3 comments),
however, a couple of journals on autism had higher levels of comments.
Pubpeer might be useful in research methods and statistics courses.
If one finds a content relevant article that is commented on that one
might use in one's course, it might be good material for discussion.
Finally, don't forget about Retraction Watch:
http://retractionwatch.com/
Note: it's always convenient to have one of your co-authors die and
then blame him/her to a problem that caused an article to be retracted;
see:
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/08/04/plos-one-retraction-notice-blames-deceased-author-for-image-manipulation/
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