Physicist Loses Degree for Data Falsification

cheese_wallet writes "Jan Hendrik Schoen was stripped of his doctoral degree by his university for fabricating data in his research. From the article: 'Schoen, now 34, was fired by Bell Laboratories in New Jersey in September 2002 after an outside review committee concluded that he made up or altered data 16 times while working in the hot fields of superconductivity and molecular electronics'."

Comments

Re:The merits of pHDs

[NothingToSeeHere]

I've read about this in Germany: the law (in most states of the federation, I guess), allows a university to recall a doctor's degree, if the person proves to be unworthy (regarding science) at a later time.

Faking data is not to be taken lightly - scientists rely on the quality of previous work. If several other scientists have wasted years of their time because of this, that's a lot of damage done.

Some links: The article in german and Google's attempt at translating it

FYI

[mocm]

I don't know how it is in the US, but in Germany you can get your PHD revoked when you misuse it for unethical purposes. You know that when you get it, it is in all the documents you get and sign.
Since the PHD is a certificate that you are able to conduct scientific research, falsifying your data would certainly contradict this ability.

Re:This is news worthy of a slashdot article? Yes!

[Richard_L_James]

Your right this is worthy of slashdot.... I did a bit a searching and now realise just how much "research" this guy was producing and then being quoted on. e.g:

AT THE height of his career in 2001, Hendrik Schön was producing papers at the remarkable rate of one every eight days" New Scientist: With hindsight, it was a hell of a lot of papers

The Hoaxes of Jan Hendrik Schoen

Re:The merits of pHDs

[Richard_L_James]

RTFA. I did and have since re-read it and found the following informative information.

Re:The merits of pHDs

[Der Krazy Kraut]

In Germany, some universities can even revoke your PhD if you've commited a felony (unrelated to your PhD or any misuse of knowledge) and were sentenced to imprisonment of 1 year or longer. I always thought that was kind of bizarre.

For example, the RWTH Aachen does this. Here's the relevant text (Promotionsordnung der RWTH, see 19, "Verlust des Doktorgrades") Sorry, German only.

Re:The merits of pHDs

[mindriot]

Is it right for a discredited man to have his pHD removed? Is it right that popular opinion can determine how qualified someone is to make a statement in their field?

The university he got his degree from was the University of Konstanz in Germany. Here's a German article (babelfished) on the whole thing. The educational laws of the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg state that a PhD title can be removed if "through his behavior at a later point in in his career, the owner has proven unworthy of the title."

From Bell Labs' summary, we can find more about what he was charged with:

• Substitution of data (substitution of whole figures, single curves and partial curves in different or the same paper to represent different materials, devices or conditions)
• Unrealistic precision of data (precision beyond that expected in a real experiment or requiring unreasonable statistical probability)
• Results that contradict known physics (behavior inconsistent with stated device parameters and prevailing physical understanding, so as to suggest possible misrepresentation of data)

[...]

The Committee's main findings and conclusions can be summarized as follows.

By all accounts, Hendrik Schön is a hard working and productive scientist. If valid, the work he and his coauthors report would represent a remarkable number of major breakthroughs in condensed-matter physics and solid-state devices.

Except for the provision of starting materials by others, all device fabrication, physical measurement and data processing in the work in question were carried out (with minor exceptions) by Hendrik Schön alone, with no participation by any coauthor or other colleague. None of the most significant physical results was witnessed by any coauthor or other colleague.

Proper laboratory records were not systematically maintained by Hendrik Schön in the course of the work in question. In addition, virtually all primary (raw) electronic data files were deleted by Hendrik Schön, reportedly because the old computer available to him lacked sufficient memory. No working devices with which one might confirm claimed results are presently available, having been damaged in measurement, damaged in transit or simply discarded. Finally, key processing equipment no longer produces the unparalleled results that enabled many of the key experiments. Hence, it is not possible to confirm or refute directly the validity of the claims in the work in question.

The most serious allegations regarding the work in question relate to possible manipulation and misrepresentation of data. These allegations speak directly to the question of scientific misconduct. The Committee carefully investigated each of these allegations and came to a specific conclusion in each case.

The evidence that manipulation and misrepresentation of data occurred is compelling. In its mildest form, whole data sets were substituted to represent different materials or devices. Hendrik Schön acknowledges that the data are incorrect in many of these instances. He states that these substitutions could have occurred by honest mistake. The recurrent nature of such mistakes suggests a deeper problem. At a minimum, Hendrik Schön showed reckless disregard for the sanctity of data in the value system of science. His failure to retain primary data files compounds the problem.

More troublesome are the substitutions of single curves or even parts of single curves, in multiple figures representing different materials or devices, and the use of mathematical functions to represen

Indeed. A very good question.

[3,4-methylenedioxyme]

Academia is far from as pure as the public might imagine. It is troubled with the same problems as the rest of society.

For those who don't know of him, George Ricaurte is the NIDA scientist which recently had to retract a severly flawed paper on MDMA neurotoxcity. Part of the problem is that NIDA is in the business of sustaining the War On Some Drugs, a multi billion business. It is in their interest to sustain funding for research that confirms the basis for this "war". Researchers which come up with results that are contrary to this cause (ie. which debunks common myths of toxicity and other perceived dangers) are committing career suicide.

The MDMA neurotoxcity paper by Ricaurte came under heavy fire for flawed methods when it was first released (mostly from partisan researchers with nothing to lose). The paper has since been used to push anti-MDMA legislation (like the RAVE act), both in the US and in other countries. The main reason the paper was retracted was the discovery that Ricaurte and his team hadn't even used MDMA in their animal toxcity experiments, but a completely different chemical. A small error (as Ricaurte claims) or evidence of very foul play? The company which supplied the chemicals claim that such a mixup is absurd and extremely unlikely.

Still, this has only put a small dent in Ricaurte's reputation, since he is working for the "good cause". The science behind it doesn't seem to be important, it's the underlying goals. He is now involved in new NIDA research with the same goals as before, to "prove" that MDMA is an inheritly dangerous and evil chemical.

For more information about the retraction, see the retraction itself and the response from MAPS.

Science is the a very good method to make the world understandable, but the public would do well to be a tad more sceptical and understand that a scientific degree is no automatic proof of pure intentions or valid results, there is almost always bias. Especially when there are large sums of money involved.