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Bell Labs fires Hendrik Schon for Data Falsification
Raiford writes "Bell Labs has fired physicist Hendrik Schon for falsifying scientific data. Schon was thought to be a likely candidate for the Nobel prize based on the promise his reported research findings had for the advancement of molecular scale computing. In a Reuters report the dismissal was described as the only conclusive case of scientific misconduct ever identified in the history of the prestigious laboratory."
This guy pulled a fast one but when nobody could replicate Bell Labs investigated further. So I think that is a good thing. Checks. Balances.
Its odd that they make a big thing out of finding the forgery though. What does that buy them? Why not say "Ouch!" fire him and move on?
it was recently discovered that there is no such thing as this so called "gravity." So all of you can quit obey this "law" and fly around. I mean it, stop, STOP IT, you DON'T have to sit there tether to the ground, get up and go float away!!
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
I have a feeling that sometimes scientists just have a 6th sense that lead them to correct hypothesises even when data does not back them up, and technology later, sometimes generations later, is able to support their ideas.
I dont know what he was working on, but I would like to give the guy the benifit of the doubt until I can read the report and experimental data.
At least he's not moving the Lab's money into offshore shell companies to show earnings..
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
The "rest of the company" is Lucent, not AT&T or AT&T Wireless which would be the division you're bitching about.
Lucent was spun off in 1996, thus Bell Labs wasn't part of your incidents in 1998.
BTW -- There are claims of Verizon, Qwest and others doing exactly the same thing today. Sad.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I do some physics research with similar materials. I saw the papers involved, and the graphs. I have no idea how he thought he could get away with that. same noise patterns. It's nuts. funny when he said a week or so ago, "I'm having some trouble reproducing the results. It's not working for me now." I suppose he'll go teach high school physics now or something.
No, I agree with him. Note that he said *real* scientists, not *most* scientists.
Plato once divided the ambitions of people into three categories: Reason (intellect, the need to seek knowledge), spirit (the need for recognition, honor), and appetite (the need for personal gain, such as wealth).
Real scientists are largely reason, usually with a bit of spirit thrown in. If you ever meet a greedy scientist, s/he isn't a real scientist--just like if you ever meet a hacker that can't code and uses l33t speak in his AOL chat window, he isn't a real hacker.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Now you can see why the scientific community insists on reproducible experiments. If you can't reproduce it, you can't trust the data. That's how Cold Fusion was debunked. Now only some of the garbage that gets reported as "news" in our mainstream media was half as well checked out.
engineer-in-a-box 2.0....
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
3 page executive summary 127 page Committee's Report (Appendix F lists the papers in question; Appendix H gives Schon's response)
I heard a story about a biological researcher who went to some lengths to forge his results. When confronted with the accusation he produced his raw data and even autoradiograms. It eventually came out that he had decided where he wanted his results, and had then used an iodine isotope to create the bands on his blot.
Due to the extreme competition that exists in most research these days, forged results are only going to become more and more common.
Like many physicists, I have spent a good chunk
of this morning reading the Beasley report on
this case. There is nothing about this guy or
his data that is not "troublesome", i.e. fake.
When your read that virtually every paper he
published is the result of scientific misconduct
it gets very hard to feel bad for the guy.
Instead I feel bad he is ruined at 32, not at 28.
...that Hendrik Schon was publishing science-fiction. Bucky Balls! Since he is already a published and widely read writer, he should stay in the field, and write some novels. Maybe he could make the Star Trek transporter seem plausible, or explain the sound in space we hear in movies.
How ya like dat?
Scientists at rival laboratories, however, had difficulty reproducing the results of Schon's work, thwarting a checks-and-balances process integral to the scientific method.
Um, no. If the "checks-and-balances process" were being thwarted, then it would have been circumvented or avoided somehow. This is an example of the process working as it's supposed to. You don't need a checks-and-balances system if everyone in the field is always going to be a good boy at all times. What happened here is that someone wasn't, and the scientific process caught him at it.
I would love it if these wire services would assign beats to reporters by taking into consideration what subjects they actually understand. They should also be fluent in the language in which they are writing, and display some comprehension of the words they're using.
And the brethren went away edified.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
"...his work led to speculation by some peers that he could one day be nominated for a Nobel Prize, a high honor."
Glad they specified that. Otherwise, I might have thought they were referring to some other Nobel prize, like maybe the Gertrude P. Nobel Prize in Experimental Cosmetology.