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

The merits of pHDs

[Ckwop]

This raise alot of questions. The key question is What does a pHD actually mean?
If pHD is meant to be a sign of knowledge in the subject then this shows i surely
the counter example show this is not the case.

I mean that You can't strip someone of knowledge. It's true that he may have faked data but he certainly had
detailed knowledge of the field and I strongly suspect his thesis did not contain any errors. His thesis would have
demanded more critical examination than a research paper. So i think it's fair to say that he earned that pHD

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?

These are questions I find hard to answer.

Simon.

Re:The merits of pHDs

[00420]

While his thesis for earning his PhD may have been 100% true, it's quite obvious that he didn't understand what he learned in Science 101 about the scientific method. So I think the university's decision to strip his PhD is a sound one.

Re:The merits of pHDs

[Talez]

I mean that You can't strip someone of knowledge.

But you can strip away the university's confidence in an individual thereby making the degree invalid.

See that little stamp on the corner of your degree? Thats merely saying the University Council thinks that you're good enough for the degree in question. The uni can also decide to take away their approval and you're left with a worthless bit of paper.

A degree is merely a university's endorsement of your knowledge. Nothing more, nothing less.

How can they revoke a degree...?

[deft]

I thought that a degree/diploma is something you get for things you did in your past, as in certain clases taken, grades acheived.... not a revokable license. If I go off in life and really suck, can I lose my high school diploma?

Even Dr. Evil gets to keep the "Dr." in his name, regardless of how many meteors he's tried to pull towards the earth with tractor beams.

Re:How can they revoke a degree...?

[hweimer]

I thought that a degree/diploma is something you get for things you did in your past, as in certain clases taken, grades acheived.... not a revokable license. If I go off in life and really suck, can I lose my high school diploma?

In Germany a doctorate is not a degree in the same sense as a diploma. A diploma allows you to enter certain professions related to that degree. A doctorate, however, does not grant such rights.

The university law of the state of Baden-Württemberg (where he got his degree) says that any degree can be revoked if a person acts "unworthy" afterwards. It is important to note that Schön did not manipulate his doctoral thesis but the descision was based on the forgeries he committed later. However, he can sue against the decision.

Re:strange

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that I'll never understand what is the purpose for data falsification.

There's a novel written by Carl Djerassi called "Cantor's Dilemma". It touches the subject of motives behind data falsification, and also it is the very good literature.

A reverse scenario

[sakusha]

This story reminds me of a story I was told when I visited MIT long ago, maybe someone can verify it or fill in the details. There's a famous domed building on the MIT campus, a gymnasium I think, that was built on a geodesic frame with concrete cast over it, it was the first building of its type, built with plans carefully calculated by a PhD student of architecture. So a few years later, another PhD student comes along and as his thesis, does calculations on the building that showed there was a miscalculation in the original plans, and the dome would start to crack down the center within 10 years. The architecture faculty was furious, they had approved the prior PhD candidate's plans, they said there was no way there was an error in the design, and they rejected the poor guy's thesis, he never got his PhD and he left MIT.
So of course, about 10 years later, the dome starts to crack. The architecture faculty digs up the guy's thesis, he was proven correct, and they award him the PhD he sought, and conduct repairs according to his recommendations.
Now there was only one detail missing in this story as I heard it, what happened to the guy who designed the original plans? If there was any justice, he would have his PhD revoked.

Publication pressure: publish or perish

[ControlFreal]

While this person commited a "crime against science" that cannot be justified in any way, I think two comments are in order.

First, there is an enormous pressure to publish in the academic world: the phrase publish or perish is heard a lot. The main reason for this is, that at a certain moment, people higher up in the management and funding chain wanted to know whether their money is spent well (or, equivalently: whom to give the money to).

So, what people do to grade the quality or research, is to count publications. Generally, this count is weighted by the "impact factor" of the journal you publish in (if you publish in Science or Nature, the impact is much higher than when publishing in the Local Journal on BlaBla). Now, counting publications is of course a hideous way to grade science. But it gets worse: a whole new field of research (that is not worthy of the name) has been founded: Citation Analysis. Basically, a database is made of who references whom, and the quality-estimate for your research is based on that.

Now, since the amount of money a professor gets depends on the publication-"score", he will put pressure on his people to publish. Again: publish or perish. This has given rise to the practice in which to try to smear one or two ideas over two or three publications: two or three low-impact pubs score higher than one medium-impact one. This, in turn, has given rise to a many many (very) low-pact journal that, frankly, contain mostly rubish; only to satisfy the bean/pub-counters and the funders.

All this, is in no way whatsoever, reason enough to falsify data. But to all the people that started shouting about "hey, this guy broke the scientific rules so he's a piece of shit", I'd like to say: This publication pressure, rather than the person's ethics, likely is the problem.

The second point I'd like to make is about the stripping of the doctoral degree: Even though it might be just, it's not necessary whatsoever; This guy is not getting a job in science anymore, degree or not. There are two things that spell doom on any scientific career: Faking, and Plagiarism. That's the end of your career, regardsless of the number of degrees you hold.