More Troubles For Authors of Controversial Acid-Bath Stem Cell Articles

bmahersciwriter writes "Reports early this year about a strikingly simple method for deriving pluripotent stem cells were met with amazement and deep skepticism, then claims that the experiments were not reproducible, then accusations of copied and manipulated figures. Now, the first author of one of the papers is being lambasted for having copied the first 20 pages of her doctoral thesis from an NIH primer on stem cells. And an adviser on her thesis committee says he was never asked to review it. Could this get any stranger? Probably!"

Comments

Science, I think not

[multimediavt]

When there is obvious chicanery involved and the experiments aren't reproducible, that is not science. Why does this story of science fiction get a science tag? It's not science if it's fake, folks. That's called fraud.

Re:Science, I think not

[Ol Olsoc]

When there is obvious chicanery involved and the experiments aren't reproducible, that is not science. Why does this story of science fiction get a science tag? It's not science if it's fake, folks. That's called fraud.

Because the fraud - if it was - was done in the name of science.

As a person of science, I am both angered by the apparent fraud, and very pleased that other scientists are going after the perps.

This is the system working, and it is working well.

Cold fusion, Piltdown man, recent anti-AGW work by shill organizations, and this. All frauds, all exposed.

In a science based system, with worldwide research, the truth will out itself.

Re:Science, I think not

[Anonymous Coward]

The original paper claimed that you could use any cell to get the special property that the embryonic researchers keep insisting is the reason they should keep getting the majority of the stem cell funding. Because the original claim would make stem cell research easier, multiple sets of grad students were assigned to replicate the results and bring in the new strains of research-grade stem cells. Only because every group of such grad students failed to reproduce the results has anyone started reading deeper.

The fact that this 'test and debunk' response is so rare is a serious problem. The problem has many factors feeding it, such as the 'publish or perish' dogma in research schools as well as the 'I'm a researcher, not a lecturer' mindset of enough university professors. Even if that Stanford Institute of Actually Testing Things stays pure to its goal and unaffected by politics (inter-university politics are my biggest concern, but any politicking will be a problem), it will not be able to make a significant dent in the massive pile of worthless 'discoveries' that have no basis in reality. Every school needs a retesting group.

Re:Science, I think not

[interkin3tic]

Because "chicanery" is not an absolute for one. I had to look up the definition "the use of trickery to achieve a political, financial, or legal purpose." You could argue that plagarizing text is trickery to get a thesis out and finished, sure. However, if Waseda is anything like my graduate school, background text on things like stem cells were of nearly zero importance. It doesn't sound like she faked any results in her thesis, which is the only part anyone cares about.

Here was my recipie for my thesis, approved by my thesis adviser and committee: Take two papers you've already published, staple them together. Write up a third part in case I hire someone to finish the stuff you didn't. Get signatures, the end.

Theses are treated with great esteem in other graduate programs. In science, or at least biology, no one gives a shit about them. My thesis adviser heavily scrutinized the two papers making up the main part of my thesis, they got peer reviewed, but the third part probably got skimmed only by my thesis adviser. Everyone else likely didn't even open the document aside from signing it.

This is not to say "plagiarism doesn't matter," or that it shouldn't be punished, just that labeling the STAP cells as bogus because of that is an overreaction. It should and IS factoring into skepticism about the results, and it should be and is a black mark on Obokata.

As far as reproducible, it's still early. It's only a few months old. The Knopfler blog is keeping track of some efforts that have failed, but if I recall, it took a year for induced pluripotent stem cells to be reproduced. The detailed protocol was released only two weeks ago.

At this point, you can conclude that Obokata should face consequences for plagiarism in her thesis, and that the "easy pluripotent stem cells" headlines were misleading. You can also conclude that more skepticism and scrutiny is merited, though skepticism should be and already was high given how important it is. It's far too early to conclude that it's outright fraud or not science. I've been somewhat following the controversy, there's no smoking gun on the actual science yet.

Lastly, remember that these are scientists, not PR experts, politicians, or celebrities. Obokata went into hiding after this blew up, I think people smelled blood in the water from that and assumed something fishy was up and not, say, that she was overwhelmed.

Re:Science, I think not

[serviscope_minor]

No, it's still working well.

If the fraud is in some boring, uninteresting area that never gets noticed, then it doesn't matter because it affects no one. If work is of interest to anyone else, it will get tested and eventually the truth will come out. If pointless work of interest to no one is never found out then ultimately it does not have much effect.

I'm not claiming the system is perfect, far from it, but the current one does a good enough job on getting to the truth of things that matter. What it does mean is you have to take obscure articles in obscure areas with a huge grain of salt. You have to do that anyway: even without fraud, many mistakes, biases in data, etc happen.

I have a friend in Minsk...

[Overzeetop]

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research".

-T. Lehrer

Re:Motive?

[Anonymous Coward]

It could also be the pressure to publish. Lots of scientists have 'performance' goals tied directly to their number of recently published articles.

Re:Motive?

[marco.tedaldi]

The Motive is clear: In today science landscape it's "publish or perish". And if you get published in Science, you're a big star. There are many many papers out there that are using fake data, plagiarizing stuff and so on. It's a game. If you get published, you have won the first round. Maybe someone is able to reproduce the work with some minor tweaks. Than, you're the hero and someone else did your work. And there is still the chance, that no one notices because they are ashamed, because they are ashamed, that they have not been able to reproduce your work. I boldly state that 5% to 10% of published results are not "clean" in one way or another! Only a small percentage of these papers will ever be found. And even after papers are found to be "flawed", sometimes the publisher does not retract it. And even retracted papers still collect citations. The scientific publication system is heavily messed up and play into the hands of a few big publishing houses and some crooks!