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Researcher Jailed for Falsifying Research
Caldeso writes "For the first time in U.S. history, a researcher has received jail time for falsifying research data to obtain federal grants. Eric Poehlman pled guilty to defrauding the government to the tune of nearly 3 million dollars by changing and making up research and was sentenced to a year in a federal prison work camp and a lifetime ban on further federal grants."
Does this apply to the CIA falsifying intelligence to secure a slice of the defence budget?
I hate printers.
I think I could tough that out for 3 million...
This guy steals 3 million and gets a work camp. Martha Stewert was in volved in a .25 million insider trading and she gets 6 months.
But Lay and a number of the very wealthy CEOs who stole BILLIONS will get 6 months to maybe several years at a very easy going federal prison. Amazing. It is all who you know.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
For 3 million I would spend a year in prison.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
The slashdot summary is not only inaccurate, but libelous. By the article, he pleaded guilty to one $542,000 grant. So, he's only been found legally accountable for that amount, not the $2.9 million claimed by the prosecution:
In an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty in connection with one $542,000 grant; the government said he defrauded federal agencies out of $2.9 million.
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
But did he run Linux?
I'll be here all night folks!
Someone please explain why this is under YRO.
OK, let me get this straight.
Defraud the government, with devious intent, for a tune of 3 million USD and receive a 1 year sentence in a work camp.
Copy a movie and get fined up to 250,000 dollars and face upto a 10 year sentence? After, getting beaten up by people who dress like cops but aren't, in public?
But do you think that W. and his admin will really jail people like Michaels and his buddies at the oil companies? I do not think so.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
An essay regarding the mentioned topic, and I thought it might be interesting to a few people. The are many non-technical paragraphs that draw to the author's conclusions, and those should be readable by all.
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request= get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Summary:
There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field.
In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.
when you have the gov't throw around billions like candy at halloween, why are we surprised that people will do this kind of stuff? when are we gonna figure out that most scientists are spouting some BS either for corporate or gov't money. yes, some are hard at work, but the real money is in getting others to fund your work. global warming? sure. nope. need money to tell you!! abortion harms women? sure. nope. need money to tell you!! but this is true of almost all the federal gov't does. the gov't spends 2.8 trillion dollars, 95% of which is completely unconstitutional. that in itself is a crime. so when someone tries to skim a few mil for themselves...
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Politician goes to prison for lying THAT will be a milestone.
(About politics, apparently personal stuff is grounds for candal)
How many of you hve known about falsification of notes and done nothing about it...
'Hey, I've got a wife and n kids to feed...
Poor guy. Obviously he forgot to credit the Flying Spaghetti Monster for his research findings.
Was he working for the feds trying to disprove the existence of global warming? Because I don't think they put you in jail for that.
With our present administration if you were falsifying data to prove creationism you might just get a medal.
Maybe some of these so-called "scientists" involved with Global Warming will get a wake-up call!
Ha! Good game, sir. Mod parent up +5 Zing!
Unfortunately, on slashdot you typically get modded down to troll for being against global warming, but I agree with you 100%...
...I should stop making up page numbers in my references?
Czech language for absolute beginners
Well, that's sort of what tipped them off. A recently-appointed federal oversight committee reviewed the bibliography he submitted of primary sources for his research, and found that he had many works cited besides the King James Bible. Knowing that the Bible is the only authentic scientific work published to date, they knew right away that the guy was committing fraud of some sort. It only took a little digging to come up with the details.
...how many turns is this going to set me back? I don't have the resources to allocate my Military funding to Research, since I'm upgrading my units!
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
How did they catch him?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Think, that the sentence was "soft".
Then i read the article, and start thinking...
OK, I don't know him, but imagine the embarrassing situation of send retraction and correction letters to (in some way) HIS community.
IMO In this kind of "criminal acts" the worst is just leave the guy in society.
It's the society who really condemn him, think that every scientific guy will know that he is a fraud. Ok, maybe when he goes to the supermarket not everybody knows who is him, but he will be asking himself "Does he recognize me?".
Rock and Roll
Based solely on this quote, we can conclude that faking the results of medical research could potentially kill people. Faking research about a new method for vectorizing signal-processing algorithms might result in a poorly performing compiler for a multiprocessor. Faking research about a medical therapy might result in real people being subjected to a lethal cocktail of drugs.
The doctor who faked the results of his medical research deserved prison time. For once, justice was served.
A scientist encroaching on the domain of politicians and business? For shame!!!
Well any fraudulent activity is bad enough, and IMO deserves such a punishment. It seems fair for what was done - enough, but not overkill. The fact that it was medical research that could put others' lives in danger makes it much worse, and it seems that he should have also been charged with some sort of gross negligence or reckless endangerment. If there was no grant involved, then I'd have thought the fraud charges were absured, and likewise the charges that weren't but could have been pressed would be insane in probably any other case. In short, I completely agree.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Non-violent offenders such as this guy should not go to jail. They should be held accountable for their actions through financial restitution.
t .php
"Nearly six out of every ten federal prison inmates are there for non-violent drug-related offenses, it's clear that drug prohibition is the primary source of this over-crowding. It has been estimated that every drug offender imprisoned results in the early release of one violent criminal, who then commits an average of 40 robberies, 7 assaults, 110 burglaries and 25 auto thefts
We should dramatically reduce the number of these early releases by eliminating their root cause - prison over-crowding.
Restitution, even if enforced through court action, deters criminals and decreases the necessity of actually going to court. Japan, which has such a system in place, is the only industrialized nation that has seen a consistent decrease in violent crime since World War II. Litigants normally come to a settlement before coming in front of the judge, so very little time is spent in court.
Why should victims have to pay taxes to feed, clothe, and shelter those who harmed them? Why should criminals get a free ride at the further expense of their victims?
People have a right to their life, liberty and property. Anyone who takes these away has an obligation to restore them as much as possible. Such restitution will not always be perfect, but the punishment fits the crime much better than today's system does.
In addition, restitution is a more effective deterrent than prison. During informal surveys, inmates claimed that they much preferred jail time, which they saw as 'time off,' than restitution, which they saw as 'work.
Restitution through productive work is the most successful rehabilitation known. Even if the victim can't be fully compensated, something is better than the nothing that they receive today. Also, repayment to the victim allows criminals to truly right their wrongs. "
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/categories_lis
Libertas in infinitum
This guy had to fake data to get grants, which I assume means he had to make his data look like what the grantors expected. So if I do an experiment that shows post-menopausal weight gain is inevitable regardless of diet, exercise, or medication, I can expect to not ever get any more money from the feds, because I bear bad news? That's just hypothetical, btw. afaik older women have a bmi to die for.
What does being a succesful grant writer entail? Interesting problems or past happy results?
The latest Slashdot meme.
He certainly didn't use that money for himself, but for his research. So he didn't steal the money to enrich himself, but just to continue his studies.
Retraction was the Most Important Part.
Bad research in some fields doesn't just waste time and resources and careers,
Bad research can kill.
There are enough honest mistakes and statistical glitches and wishful thinking
without adding fraud to the mix.
Actually I think it was the fraud, rather than faking results, that he got done for. I expect if he'd killed a couple of patients he'd have done time for that too.
There was a Slate article on hard labor recently. The context was military punishment, but maybe it's relevant? Maybe not. Either way, I think I'll go double check my grant proposals ...
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable con
I go to jail if I claim exotic tax writeoffs or claim 22 children and my goldfish as dependants om my 1040 tax form...why shouldnt they go to jail for claiming to have a "cure for all that ails 'ya"? As a tazpayer I love to see public money abusers thrown in prison...cow if only we could do the same to senators who build bridges to nowhere in Alaska...
and not a "federal pound me in the ass" one
One of the major arguments of a major subset of the anti-evolution/pro-Creationism school of thought (if it can be called that...) is that there is some sort of tippy-top secret conspiracy among scientists to keep their own cash flow going by producing evidence in favor of evolution. The consensus seems to be that scientists are all a bunch of godless atheists who are interested only in lining their own pockets-- that they lie and cheat and deny the "obvious fact" that an invisible man in the sky created the world 6,000 years ago in order to make money hand over fist.
I GUARANTEE you that the instant one of the people who maintains one of the many creationist sites out there gets wind of this, this guy will get made into (anecdotal) evidence for the "fact" that all scientists are not to be trusted.
*bashes head against wall*
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
He loses one year of his life in jail to get $3mil, of which he has been ordered to repay absolutely nothing, and will be living the next year without having to pay rent, buy his own food, pay his own utilities, and so on. I lose one year of my life to something like a jail and I earn about 5% of that, and from my own income I have to pay my own rent and my own bills. Gee, defrauding $3mil from the government (really from the taxpayers) is seeming more and more attractive by the minute.*
*This comment was made in jest. As Bush probably has people spying on everyone every moment of every goddamned day, ready to arrest people for the slightest offense in the name of combatting terrorism, I simply want to say to you, Mr. Dumbass, I mean, Mr. President, is that I don't actually plan to steal $3mil from the taxpayers. I mean, you do that enough.
It's a girl!
I thought the same thing at first, that this was a soft sentence for the man in question... however, being barred from any federal grant ever is no laughing matter.
That, and this kind of disgrace will more or less ruin his career. It doesn't matter whether he spends his life inside a jail cell or on the streets; everything he's ever worked for is gone, permanently. His life's work is now less than shit because he got too greedy... that's a hard pill to swallow. I mean, seriously, what's he going to do now? Teach physics and biology at some tiny shit high school in the stix? Pump gas? Manage a McDonalds? This is a good lesson for the more unscrupulous in the scientific community: engage in lying and scumbaggery, and lose everything you've held dear, ever.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
One of the greatest problems with modern society (at least, here in the States) is that we do not hold our politicians or press to the slightest rule of truth. A politician could lie through his teeth and claim that everything colored green and striped caused people to become terrorists, and couldn't be prosecuted. A politician could claim that eating foreign food contributed to the detriment of society. What's wrong with this, with expressing their opinions? They run public offices, god dammit, and should be held to a higher stander; if anything, to the simplest standard where demonstrably false bullshit is illegal to come out of their fucking mouths when speaking on the record and in public, poisoning our society.
I'm not trying to regulate freedom of speech, so before every devil's advocate up and hops on to comment, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying that people who hold public office should be held to the same standards we hold people to when they are on the witness stand in court: DO NOT FUCKING LIE . That is all.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
It will be interesting to see what he ends up getting from the judges...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
1 year in a prison camp, for basically stealing 3 million dollars of tax payers money.
How long do you get for piracy even on a low scale?
yeah, the system has failed.
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
Maybe some of these so-called "scientists" involved with Global Warming will get a wake-up call!
The so-called scientists involved in the the oil-and-gas disinformation campaign are indeed guilty of fraud. Only now are the scientists involved in the Tobacco disinformation campaign starting to be held to account. Let us hope that in this situation the wheels of justice move quicker.
If you think there is any legitimate question as to the relationship between CO2 and climate change, or as to humankind's contribution to CO2, or as to the acuteness of the problem, please cite reviewed scientific articles.
If you don't believe in science, say so. But don't dismiss the scientific evidence as "voodoo science" without offering some of what you consider "real science." Testimonials are not science, regardless of who makes them.
For those who bat about the words "proof" and "theory" I suggest you determine what they mean in a technical context. Americans are perfectly happy to kill their own citizens with a standard of proof known as "beyond reasonable doubt." And to kill the citizens of other countries on mere suspicion. There is no reasonable doubt about the relationships stated above. In terms of the popular legal use of the word proof, the case is proven.
There is some uncertainty as to how fast the climate change may cascade out of control. Just like when I turn up the volume control on a PA system, I know that I will eventually get horrible screeching feedback but I can't point to the exact position on the dial where it will occur. This does not make feedback "a theory" or "uncertain" at all. In the case of global there is strong evidence that this feedback has started to occur; we just don't know when it will be outright out of control.
Faking research in other fields can cause problems when people like the ones I'm working with decide to apply that research to medicine. Then we get false results, which can cause people to die indirectly.
It's all linked. As the article said, a break in the chain can destroy the validity of everyone's results further down.
OK, I know I'm being stupid for replying to an acknowledged troll, but let's take a moment and see if we can't try and set the record straight about WMDs and Iraq. This is one of those issues that really bugs me, so I feel compelled to reply:
It's not uncommon for universities to have supplies of radioactive isotopes on hand for physics or medical research. In fact, many universities in the US and elsewhere run small-scale nuclear reactors for producing a variety of radioactive materials. Unless this Iraqi university you mention had half-a-kilo of weapons-grade U-235 or plutonium, than I think it's a stretch to hold this out as proof of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq before the most recent war. There are more uses for radioactives than just building bombs.
Say it with me now -- evidence of banned missiles or aircraft that *might be* used to deliver chemical, biological or nuclear munitions offers no concrete proof that Iraq actively sought to develop and produce C-B-N weapons prior to the US invasion in 2003. To date, no compelling evidence has emerged to substantiate the claim that the Iraqis had any recent capacity to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, at least not since the end of Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s. While a few examples of old chemical munitions have cropped up in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, none of these weapons proved to have more than trace amounts of Serin or mustard gas inside. As far as I am aware, most experts still agree that the handful of artillery shells found to date containing chemical agents were probably leftovers from Iraq's war with Iran during the 1980s. Despite unlimited access to the country and several years to carry out the search, the US still has no smoking gun which proves that Iraq failed to comply with United Nations resolutions banning the manufacture of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
I don't think that any reasonable person in the US, or any nation in the international community for that matter, believes that Saddam abandoned his ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction after Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War. The main issue of consequence before the 2003 Iraq invasion was not if Saddam still wanted these weapons, but if he actually *had* them, or had the capacity to manufacture new weapons after 1991, in open defiance of numerous United Nations resolutions. Right now, the overwhelming majority of evidence points to the conclusion that Saddam, perhaps grudgingly and unwillingly, generally complied with the demands of the United Nations. Had anyone really doubted Saddam's intentions, it's unlikely that the United Nations would have spent so much time, money and effort on weapons inspections and monitoring before the 2003 war. Again, it wasn't Saddam's intentions that were up for debate before the US-led invasion, it was his capacity to manufacture and deploy these weapons that the US administration provided as the rationale for war.
I'm going to save my response to this statement for the next section.
And maybe if they weren't stupid and unmotivated they wouldn't be drugged-out slackers who used to get the shit kicked out of them in high school.
/tards.
It's your life. Blaming someone else for your failures isn't going to make your life any better. Whether you address your shortcomings or piss away your time on earth casting blame is your decision. No one else.
"+5 insightful"?!?! Bunch of fucking
I disagree, to a degree. Don't let anyone off the hook because you presume the results of their falsifications won't have far-reaching consequences. It's a damn rare piece of research that doesn't have some application, somewhere, and there's no way to predict how something will ultimately be used. Using your example, if that defective signal-processing algorithm happened to end up in a jet liner's avionics package the results could be catastrophic. When you get right down to it, medical treatments have to undergo far more rigorous testing procedures than most algorithms do. Like doctors and other medical personnel, software developers have to place their trust in the work of others, whether that be some unsung programmer at Microsoft or a computer scientist who comes up with a cool new algorithm.
... given a chance good science (and good scientists!) will weed them out.
... the guy's a crook and deserved what he got.
Events of this nature do stress the importance of scientific method, peer-review and replication of results. There will always be bad apples
So far as that three mil is concerned, I guess this just goes to show that bureaucrats don't make good watchdogs for scientists. Heck, I could have told them that. But I agree with you otherwise
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Thanks for the point,
now lets talk about all that global warming research funded by the EPA?
I'd say he actually got off easy. Under Federal Code every falsified data point (yes, just one point) can get you $65,000.00 fine (might only be $6,500.00 I'm not quite sure), and 10 years in prison. This is because falsifying data to for a federal grant is equivalent to lying directly to the government. Regards, Alunduil
How about Mann's work, which has been more expensive?
As a researcher in another field, I'm appalled at how freely NIH spends its enormous research budget. When I saw the headline I immediately (and correctly) guessed that NIH was the agency that had been duped. I've seen people cross over from my field to anything vaguely "health" related and get grants many times larger, and with little oversight. While not committing fraud, they got quite a bit more money than they really needed. The NIH budget has doubled from $13.7B to $28.7B in the last seven years, and it seems they cannot spend the money fast enough. In comparison, DARPA's budget is $3.3B, and due to much better oversight, I feel they get much more return on their investment.
let this be a warning to all you scientists...
no more falsification, or else!
http://robots.stanford.edu/cv.html
see the more detailed C.V. in which this guy states that he had gained a B.Sc. in Medicine etc. Well the Problem is that German Universities have only awarded B.Sc. since 1999. So he is a liar. Furthermore, there does not exist a B.Sc. in medicine and neither you could have studied medicine at Hildesheim Unviersity in the first place, because there is no medical school.
And if you check with the German-to-English translation site he should have been honest about the real translation
http://pda.leo.org/ende?search=vordiplom
AND THIS LIAR is PROFESSOR at STANFORD
There is so much scam out there, it is incredible. Law makers really should clamp down on scientific misconduct much harder, like in sports, where atheletes have to take a doping test, scientists and researchers, need to take every year an academic integrity test. There needs to be also a system which awards whistle-blowers more fairly.
I guess it is more like the soft and fluffy research about the benefit of exercising to various groups of people.
I was overly tired after whacking my head in the pool yesterday. 5% of $1mil, not of $3mil. Not that it matters. Point is he got of so easy that it's a more attractive option to defraud $3mil and get a year than to work a year and make so much less while taking care of my own bills. Oh, you know what I mean!
It's a girl!
The damning report correctly states that most research in computer architecture (unlike research topics in the medical sciences) is almost never reproduced because most researchers in CA do not care about reproduction.
I daresay that the failure of the Itanium was to due to depending on wild and unreproducible claims by numerous professors seeking to build their academic careers. When reality hit the fan, Itanium collapsed under the weight of the fraudulent results.
If you doubt the report or if you doubt what I am saying, just select some often cited CA papers and try to find follow-up papers that actually verified the results in the often cited papers. You can try, but you will fail.
Anyone?
Or the other way around: You might choose to research something else because he's already researching it, and it turns out his theory was a good one, but all the research has to be redone when the lies are discovered.
Think of science as carefully searching an area. If someone starts lying about what they found, now you have to go back and search it again. While you can't assume what they said they found was there, you can't assume there's nothing there either. And people might have started to search somewhere else less promising, because they knew someone was already searching in the obvious place.
Especially with grants. Half the point of writing up a grant is to demonstrate you are researching something unique. While this guy was researching whatever he was researching, they would refused grants to people who wanted to look in the same place, so those people are now looking somewhere else.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Matthew Lesko unavailable for comment.
The Ezine Directory
so....
(obvious question comes) how come bush and co, who HORRIBLY lied to the american public about real life/death things (the war, wmd, etc) gets to continue to live scott-free?
his ass should be in jail for the heinous crime of causing an illegal and unnecessary war and lying to the american public. and when CAUGHT in the lie, and is fully exposed, STILL nothing happens to him!
its hard to justify jailing a researcher for 'just lying' about some research he did when much worse crimes are going on and left totally unpunished.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Is this pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison?
Having done small amounts of research myself I know how easy it is to make up things (or make extended guesses) when looking in to theories/hypothosis. However, in this case, the potential damage done (medical research) is massive; people could have died. The issue of wasting money is kind of mute in comparison to damage caused by the information spread by this researcher. Sure, I can understand the first initial reaction of: "That is a lot of money!" But, in reality, this isn't that much money for a research grant. It really is disturbing that someone would falsify medical research in order to secure grant funds. The physist claiming a theory about gravity and proving himself wrong is one thing, the doctor providing medication on a fake basis is another.
Just because crooks are reviewing crooks doesn't make the European carbon hype any truer. Check out
the politics and economic interests behind the carbon issue and you will find European capital groups all excited
about building a Carbon Stock Excahnge where you can trade the "right" to release carbon in the
atmosphere and with everybody having to buy into this from industry to agriculture.
Tell you what, I will gleefully ignore all of your peer reviewed papers when Deutsche and Dresdner Bank
are doing the funding.
You're right about one thing, though. Corrupt scientists could find their asses in a labor camp.
Apparently you don't believe in logic much, either: I will gleefully ignore all of your peer reviewed papers when Deutsche and Dresdner Bank are doing the funding. This is a strawman fallacy. Can you point to any of the scientific literature funded by these banks? And even if you can, is the conclusion any different if you discount these sources? Can you point to any scientific literature that supports your implication that man's production of CO2 is not responsible for climate change?
In contrast to debate as to man's impact on climate, there is much legitimate debate as to how to mitigate this impact, as it involves social, economic and politicial issues in addition to scientific ones. There is ample evidence that "doing nothing" is not a solution.
As I understand it, it wouldn't be technically all that hard to "turn down the volume" enough to avoid runaway climate change -- so long as we did it before the change cascades out of control. Just stopping the burning of forests and a minor change in the vehicles we drive and/or how much we drive would go a long way. I say "just" but of course effecting even a small socio-economic-political change is a large undertaking.
I believe in science as a best-effort MODEL to TRY to explain the world we live in to a CERTAIN DEGREE.
I don't believe in science to the point that it really reflects more of nature than what our puny imagination
and little minds are capable of working with.
I don't believe in models clearly built to serve socio-economic interests. I don't believe in peer review
that is funded by the same financiers and pointing out that some science is funded so why don't you comment
on making CO2-Emissions a tradeable commodity? The Kyoto crowd is not exactly a conspiracy, they are
acting out their drama in public and the papers are out there for any and all who care to read.
Are you saying that our imagination is just as good as science at predicting the effect of CO2? Qualifies as dont' believe in science in my book.
I don't believe in models clearly built to serve socio-economic interests.
State strawman. Repeat until believed. You dismiss all peer review while providing no evidence that any is so influenced.
Cast as many aspersions as you like on the Kyoto crowd. Unless they are the most powerful conspiracy that has ever existed -- even more powerful than the Catholic Church in its heydey -- there must surely be scientific venues not under its control that would be prepared to review and publish valid contrary evidence. So where is this evidence?
Since with your last post you divert the attention away from the subject, does that mean you're stumped and have nothing more to add?
Maybe I'm giving you a little too much credit here but all I can see is you came up with an excuse to tag this thread with yet another
keyword.
See Monty Python's The Argument Sketch .
Apparently one of us is in the wrong room.