How Common Is Scientific Misconduct?

Hugh Pickens writes "The image of scientists as objective seekers of truth is periodically jeopardized by the discovery of a major scientific fraud. Recent scandals like Hwang Woo-Suk's fake stem-cell lines or Jan Hendrik Schön's duplicated graphs showed how easy it can be for a scientist to publish fabricated data in the most prestigious journals. Daniele Fanelli has an interesting paper on PLoS ONE where she performs a meta-analysis synthesizing previous surveys to determine the frequency with which scientists fabricate and falsify data, or commit other forms of scientific misconduct. A pooled, weighted average of 1.97% of scientists admitted to having fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once — a serious form of misconduct by any standard — and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behavior of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices. Misconduct was reported more frequently by medical/pharmacological researchers than others. 'Considering that these surveys ask sensitive questions and have other limitations, it appears likely that this is a conservative estimate of the true prevalence of scientific misconduct,' writes Fanelli. 'It is likely that, if on average 2% of scientists admit to have falsified research at least once and up to 34% admit other questionable research practices, the actual frequencies of misconduct could be higher than this.'"

Comments

Time to man up dude!

[tjstork]

you actually have to treat your scientist well.

Dude, you have are crazy. You have no idea how cushy you have it and your whining is an insult to everyone else that pays taxes to support you guys - on everything from student loan guarantees, federal grants, and more. How much does NSF get a year? Plus the right to patent the stuff the gov't pays you to research.

If you think being a scientist sucks, try working on a factory floor. Everyone works crazy hours with no holidays, scientist or no. You talk about having a pension problem with the university? Man, people get no pensions at all. We got worthless 401ks and bogus T-Bills on our end! You talk about working two years on an experiment to find out your hypothesis is wrong? Cry me a river. There's tons of people that work for two years, five years, ten years, pitching in to build up a business, and then they'll get bumped out on the street because some jackass guy in bufukistan can do it cheaper.

To be honest, I do not even get angry anymore when I suspect someone may have done something "questionable". It's just sad

Then you are part of the problem. If you get angry at why the public has lost its faith in science, there's your answer.