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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'."
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.
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.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
If the University cannot find anything wrong with his work for his graduate program and doctorate research, then I don't believe they should take away something he earned.
I suspect the university is simply grandstanding. "We are ethically pure, so much so that we rescind doctorates from people who later on turn to the dark side."
On the other hand, it probably feels good to pull the rug out from under this guy.
-Adam
What a lightweight!!! You have to falsify data at least 50 times to keep a PhD.
That kind of crap got you marked way down in my high school chem and physics classes.
If i were older than the guy I'd be saying something along the lines of "What are they teaching kids these days?"
I really am not comfortable with the idea of going back in time to revoke someone's doctorate unless academic misconduct led to its granting in the first place. This is part of a general principle: Once you assign the degree, no post-degree behavior should alter your judgement that this person fulfilled the requiremens for the degree. I don't care if you turn out to be a dictator, a Communist, a conservative, a liar, a child molester, a monk, a mass murderer, or a plumber. You met the requirements and earned the degree -- it's that simple. Degrees are not a measure of your worth as a human being -- they are certification that you successfully met a series of requirements, none of which include being a decent and honorable person.
Now if you got the degree through academic malfeasance, that's a different matter -- but I checked the article and all of this guy's sins seem to have been post-graduation.
Make cheese not war 8:)
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.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
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
I'm doing a PhD in civil engineering field - numerical simulations of behaviour of concrete and reinforced concrete. And also I've done a lot of research in granular materials field.
I think that I'll never understand what is the purpose for data falsification. Every, I say EVERY, scientist knows, that experiment that yields unexpected/bad results is a GOOD experiment. It gives new insight into how things work, it forces you to revise your model and change it. It leads you to change your model into a better one, and also it helps you in learning how to conduct scientifically correct experiments. Without failures and mistaken indeas humanity wouldn't learn anything.
Lust for changing results moves science BACKWARD instead of forward. is of course childish, on no-one benefits from that, even the lier does not benefit.
sorry about the rant, but I was really upset, and had to say that.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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he has a secure future in politics at least
Depends what field you work in.
If he moved to politics, he'd probably have a successful career.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
The reason for the revocation is not embarrasment, it is his unethical behavior. And the rules for getting and keeping your doctoral degree ( in German Promotionsordnung) clearly state that your PhD will be revoked if it is used for unethical or criminal purposes. So in this case the university really has no choice.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Falsifying data is for high school and undergrad physics labs. Past that the data and lab procedure actually become important.
Oh, and please don't tell my physics teacher I said that...
The reason why it's foolish to do so is:
1. The premise of experimental oberved science is that it should be reproducible. At some point of time - and especially if your work gets noticed - someone, somewhere will duplicate your experimental coniditions and figure out that the results aren't there.
2. This is more of a personal thing, but the fun of research is really the process not the results. If you're in it for the fame alone, buddy, you're in the wrong job!
from the perspective of a degree as an object, something to be obtained, it is hard to fathom that it can be "revoked." however, if instead a degree is conceived as not merely a thing to be held, a possession, but rather a state of being (e.g. I am a doctor, as opposed to I have a doctorate), then a revokation here seems entirely justified, for in his falsification he undermined his claim to the status.
you'll lose your drivers license as well, because obviously you're using the benefits which come with it irresponsibly. It doesn't matter that you passed the test years ago.
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.
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.
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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.