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Many Scientists Admit Unethical Practices

Posted by Zonk on from the only-human dept.

jangobongo writes "A surprising number of scientists engage in questionable research practices says a story at the Washington Post. According to a large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior, 15% admit to changing a study under pressure from a funding source. Other reasons for altering data include dropping data from a study based on a gut feeling and failing to include data that contradicts one's own research. This chart gives a quick rundown of the percentage of U.S. based scientists who reported having engaged in questionable research practices according to the survey."

1 of 610 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yay, lots of science isn't. by borroff · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was an undergrad, I worked at a campus observatory giving tours, since it wasn't a working research site anymore. It did, however, hold offices for two astrophysics grad students. Since I had taken some graduate classes with one of them, they deigned to speak to me.

    One of them was doing his dissertation on stellar pressure gradients. He was having this huge block writing his thesis, because his results contradicted a previously published paper's conclusions, and he couldn't figure out where he went wrong. After some digging and calculating, he realized that the prior paper's data contradicted their conclusion as well, and they had just faked the diagrams to match their predicted result.

    So much for peer review...