China's Scientists Set New International Record -- For Faked Peer Reviews (nytimes.com)

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China's Scientists Set New International Record -- For Faked Peer Reviews (nytimes.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday October 15, 2017 @06:14AM from the regretting-retractions dept.

China now has more laboratory scientists than any other country in the world, reports Amy Qin in the New York Times, and spends more on research than the entire European Union. But in its rush to dominance, China has stood out in another, less boastful way. Since 2012, the country has retracted more scientific papers because of faked peer reviews than all other countries and territories put together, according to Retraction Watch, a blog that tracks and seeks to publicize retractions of research papers... In April, a scientific journal retracted 107 biology research papers, the vast majority of them written by Chinese authors, after evidence emerged that they had faked glowing reviews of their articles. Then, this summer, a Chinese gene scientist who had won celebrity status for breakthroughs once trumpeted as Nobel Prize-worthy was forced to retract his research when other scientists failed to replicate his results. At the same time, a government investigation highlighted the existence of a thriving online black market that sells everything from positive peer reviews to entire research articles...

In part, these numbers may simply reflect the enormous scale of the world's most populous nation. But Chinese scientists also blame what they call the skewed incentives they say are embedded within their nation's academic system.

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Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 06:28 · Score: 0

Win at all costs = cheater culture. Chinese society is all about shortcuts.
1. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Kleanthes · 2017-10-15 07:23 · Score: 2
  
  Yeah, would be much better if they were the 'murican type of Christian. Then they would also cheat, but at least they would also loudly complain about cheaters.
2. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 09:09 · Score: 0
  
  Lol, equating religion to being honest. To actually believe in god/miracles/and the word, means you have to lie to yourself.
3. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 09:25 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, a lot of corrupt scumbags know the best place to hide their ill gotten gains beyond the reach of The Party is in Manhattan real estate.
4. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 11:48 · Score: 0
  
  Not just in China. This goes on everywhere around the world. The root of the problem is that it's a system that values quantity over quality and uses metrics as targets. It's incredibly easy to game the system even without risking retraction. Up until now, the system's kind of sort of worked because most scientists are honest and aren't under too much pressure to break the rules. That's changing though.
5. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 12:00 · Score: 0
  
  It depends on which era you pick. Every civilization inherits from the previous. None of them reinvent the wheel. So modern European civilization is based on Babylonian, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese civilizations that came before.
6. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 18:28 · Score: 0
  
  At least have the courtesy of citing Dr Savage when you use his stuff...
7. Re:Chinese are programmed to cheat. by slashrio · 2017-10-15 18:41 · Score: 1
  
  The good news is: They actually retracted them.
  
  --
  "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
8. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-16 00:57 · Score: 1
  
  Our present economic boom is due to the revolution in electronics and computer technology.
  
  Our present economic "boom" is a recovery from the country being driven to the edge of bankruptcy by the real estate bubble collapse and most of those gains went to the 1% in the form of returns on cheaply purchased shares in bailed out financial institutions. The middle and lower class have less purchasing power than ever due to stagnant wages that show no sign of improving without government intervention.
  In other words, congratulations on drinking the Kool-Aid. You've done an excellent job defending rich old white men who are raping the economy, the environment and the people of the country for their own gain. I'm sure you'll enjoy your reward of having your health care cut, less funding for FEMA to help others and and a big increase in your taxes while the 1% suffer through their taxes and obligations to society being reduced.
9. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-16 03:48 · Score: 0
  
  " I know about such things as the Chinese and gunpowder, but they didn't take it much beyond firecrackers and pyrotechnics. "
  You should read some history before starting talk BS in internet, the chinese invented Landmines, Rockets, Firelances, multiple stage rockets, handguns, cannons, grenades and naval mines.
10. Re: Chinese are programmed to cheat. by Pinky's+Brain · 2017-10-16 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  A lot of civilizations just collapsed with no lasting legacy but ruins, their philosophical and technological innovations forgotten until our Civilization's archaeologists started to uncover them. We got extremely lucky by inheriting the progression of preceding civilizations instead of just letting it all be reduced to rubble. Modern civilization is a complete fluke.
  Seculars have now taken over the baton for the most part, lets see if they can keep it going. I kinda doubt it, they are falling into the same trap as Christianity in its dying days, lack of conviction in their superiority, hollowed out by human rights worship. Sure liberals think themselves superior to white Christians and are willing to twist every which way to combat them, but at some point Christians and whites are going to be irrelevant and they'll be surrounded by the faster breeding "allies" they brought in to defeat them. Liberals will have to go full commie and give up on human rights worship for parts of their culture to survive, I'm not sure they will be able to.
11. Re:Chinese are programmed to cheat. by beastofburdon · 2017-10-17 07:13 · Score: 0
  
  So much this! I highly doubt they have any more scientific fraud in China than here in the US, but they seem to actually be retracting the papers. Here in the US we rarely even attempt to reproduce results anymore. So, we have a scientific community completely filled to the brim with fraudulent studies and nobody calling them out on it.
"Publish or perish" by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 06:30 · Score: 0

Even the Chinese think it's Interesting.
Incentives are skewed everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 06:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

"In part, these numbers may simply reflect the enormous scale of the world's most populous nation. But Chinese scientists also blame what they call the skewed incentives they say are embedded within their nation's academic system."
I don't see how these skewed incentives are any different in Western countries.
1. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by nachtelfjeiu · 2017-10-15 06:33 · Score: 1
  
  That was me btw, i hadn't logged in.
2. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 06:54 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  I don't give a shit who you are.
3. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by RightwingNutjob · 2017-10-15 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  RTFA. The incentives may be the same (in kind, if not in degree), but here there are strong disincentives from faking shit that don't exist over there.
4. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 08:11 · Score: 0, Redundant
  
  But I do, for some very insightful comments, for example.
5. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 08:33 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I don't see how these skewed incentives are any different in Western countries.
  
  Presumably you have performed research in both China and in the West and your comment is drawing on your deep knowledge of the educational systems of both countries? No? The ability of slashdotters to hold strong opinions on subjects which they know next to nothing about never ceases to amaze. In China, Master's students must publish a certain number of papers above a certain impact factor in order to graduate. For PhD students, the bar is set higher. Principal investigators are given cash sums - which can be quite substantial - based on the impact factors of their papers. Add to this the weak separation between personal income and research funding and the incentive to cheat is huge.
6. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by TapeCutter · 2017-10-15 13:19 · Score: 1
  
  Glad you cleared that up. I would have thought the fact that they have a large number of retractions indicates their peer-review system is working, not failing. For comparison, how long did it take before Andrew Wakefield's "research" was retracted?
  
  --
  And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
7. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by SNRatio · 2017-10-15 16:43 · Score: 1
  
  I would have thought the fact that they have a large number of retractions indicates their peer-review system is working, not failing.
  
  Not exactly. Peer review happens before publication, not after. For an article to be retracted it first had to pass peer review. In the case mentioned in the story, the journal (Tumor Biology, which has a US/European editorial board), allows authors to suggest peer reviewers and trusted the contact information they received. It's pretty trivial to verify the email address of a professor in the US or Europe. The retractions happened because these authors used names of real Chinese professors - but fake email addresses.
  So they wrote their own peer reviews.
8. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by gtall · 2017-10-15 22:31 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Maybe it works for Chinese publications. However, Chinese papers don't just get submitted to Chinese publications, they get submitted to journals and conferences outside China. It isn't easy reading a paper for review. Unless you are doing precisely similar research, you must learn enough about the research to know if it is good or not. I read a (Chinese) paper (written in English...well written English, I might add) on rings (mathematics). I'm not a ring theorist but I do know a bit of algebra. I decided I wouldn't just read the paper but track down every result. Marvelous paper except for the first theorem upon which all the rest were based. I couldn't prove it, and I tried hard. Many times papers do not include all the proofs because it would make the paper too long for publication or they are considered trivial in the field.
  After writing and Latexing 15 pages of notes and proofs on the rest of the paper, I radioed back I wanted to see their proof of that theorem. What I got back was a reference and how it was a trivial conclusion from the reference. I found the reference and read it (yet another paper I had to read after tracking down and reading some of their previous refs). I couldn't see it. I radioed back I wanted to see an honest proof, not invocation to a Higher Authority. After 2 months, they retracted the paper. The total time from my first seeing the paper to that retraction was 8 months and several long days of my time....on one paper...
  My point is that few reviewers are going to dig in their heels and properly review a paper, few have that kind of time. After that, I'll be damned if I'm not going to read another paper the same exact way. It will cost me in time, but I'll learn new things and maybe another piece of shit won't make it into a journal.
9. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by shaitand · 2017-10-16 02:55 · Score: 1
  
  While it is nice for the journal to effectively run on auto-pilot in that way it seems like a poor plan overall for peer review. Obviously the person submitting the article will be most familiar with those working on the most related research but that is just setting dishonesty as low hanging fruit tempting frustrated researchers to compromise their integrity.
10. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by shaitand · 2017-10-16 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  Informative if accurate. Hopefully someone moderates that way.
  
  The GP was likely making a redundant snarky remark about there being a strong incentive to cheat both in the West and in China without details on the Chinese pressures. Based on your details there is even greater incentive to cheat in China although it also remains true that there is a great deal of incentive in the West as well.
  
  Even worse than incentive to outright fake data is incentive to be selective about researched topics and slant in the direction of research not to mention slant in the conclusions and summaries of papers. For example, a conclusion that chemical x is indeed harmful because data showed any sort of potential harm and completely disregarding the relative potential harm vs other used substances either related and commonly used or generally considered low risk. When there is a very small number of large players funding an area of research an extreme bias can be presented with any search on the safety of chemical x possibly returning nothing but dozens of negative seeming papers all technically true and seeming to provide an overwhelming mountain of negative evidence which is largely vapor.
11. Re:Incentives are skewed everywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-16 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  One could also say that China isn't yet quite corrupt enough to do fake peer review and not catch it. For 1.3 billion people, that's not entirely horrible -- compared to somewhere like India.
12. Re: Incentives are skewed everywhere by nachtelfjeiu · 2017-10-17 20:14 · Score: 1
  
  Thank you :-) It's also about taking some responsibility for my words.
Incentives by JBMcB · 2017-10-15 06:45 · Score: 1

Because the government is throwing billions of Yuan indiscriminately into research. There is incentive to get that money. Grants are somewhat less forthcoming in the US, so there is a higher requirement for better quality research.

--
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
1. Re:Incentives by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 07:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Sigh... people talk about research money like the researchers themselves actually profit from it. 99% of the time, researcher salary is fixed completely independently of grant money obtained.
  Instead, we could actually RTFA, the paragraph after...
  
  As in the West, career advancement can often seem to be based more on the quantity of research papers published rather than the quality. However, in China, scientists there say, this obsession with numerical goal posts can reach extremes. Compounding the problem, they say, is the fact that Chinese universities and research institutes suffer from a lack of oversight, and mete out weak punishments for those who are caught cheating.
2. Re:Incentives by roc97007 · 2017-10-15 07:20 · Score: 1
  
  "researcher salary is fixed completely independently of grant money obtained."
  True. But they get to have a job, and they get to have their names on stuff.
  
  --
  Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
3. Re:Incentives by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  Where I work, having a job is also completely independent from bringing in research grants. And being a researcher is about the least efficient way to be famous.
4. Re:Incentives by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-16 01:24 · Score: 0
  
  Not true. If you don't have grant money funding your research, then you aren't doing research. If you aren't doing research, you won't be employed for very long. They most certainly profit from grant money in that it pays their salary. Unless that is, you're doing corporate research which then it's not grant money paying your salary, but you'll be employed for just about as long if you aren't doing research.
5. Re:Incentives by shaitand · 2017-10-16 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  Do you work as a researcher? This is technically true at most places but in reality being able to afford and justify spending money on you ultimately depends on grants. Also, there are often others working under a researcher on various projects doing research, computation, administering the systems and if funding goes away those people will all be out of the job. Unless they are a sociopath a researcher does feel some level of responsibility for those people.
6. Re:Incentives by shaitand · 2017-10-16 02:39 · Score: 0
  
  Right, if you are doing private sector research it is basically the same pressure but all your grants come from a single source. There is a extreme bias in this case which compromises the integrity of your results but it is at least partially tempered by the fact that in general the private sector won't tolerate results that can't be turned into solutions which actually work indefinitely.
7. Re:Incentives by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-16 03:01 · Score: 0
  
  Depending on who is giving the grants in the U.S. most grants go to individuals rather than organizations. NSF grants always go to individuals. So that means that though most researchers working under a grant are just paid employees there is a head researcher who is the one upon who the grant depends. If an organization loses them the grant goes with them.
  When most research was done at universities these were the tenured professors.
  These are the people who's name is the first on the paper and the one who wins the Noble Prize. Look at the latest Physics winners. They lead huge teams of people who did the actual work. And their names are the first ones on the papers that sometimes have dozens or hundreds of other names.
Not just about large population by JoshuaZ · 2017-10-15 06:47 · Score: 2

From the summary:

In part, these numbers may simply reflect the enormous scale of the world's most populous nation.

That is probably part of it, but it is worth emphasizing that that is definitely not all of it. The per a capita retraction rate for China is much higher than it is for other large countries.
1. Re:Not just about large population by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 08:14 · Score: 0
  
  The per a capita retraction rate for China is much higher than it is for other large countries.
  Other large countries? You mean, India? They are both substantially larger than any other countries on the planet, going by population.
  Also, I can find no data which actually gives the numbers required for such a comparison. The New York Times is just citing a blog for their story.
2. Re:Not just about large population by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 08:53 · Score: 0
  
  Percentages, or it didn't happen. "Per a capita"??
3. Re:Not just about large population by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  Well, China is only 1.2 billion, and they are first place even when *ALL* other counties and territories are added up. So they are 1.2 billon out of 7+ billion people. Seems indicative of a problem.
4. Re:Not just about large population by thegarbz · 2017-10-15 14:08 · Score: 1
  
  Genuinely interested, but what about per academic? I suspect it would be high too since much of the Chinese population won't ever get anywhere near a university.
5. Re:Not just about large population by slashrio · 2017-10-15 18:46 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, for China, divide by 1.2 billion.
  
  --
  "Trump!!", the new Godwin.
I KNEW IT! SHokcer! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 07:01 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Ever saw a product manual or the instructions? It'll like them never learnt Enlish in the first place.
"a new international record" by roc97007 · 2017-10-15 07:19 · Score: 1

Keep in mind that this only means that China is in first place, not that this is the only place this is happening.

--
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
sounds familiar. by Gravis+Zero · 2017-10-15 07:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

Chinese scientists also blame what they call the skewed incentives they say are embedded within their nation's academic system.
It sounds like they have a similar problem to the US's collapsing "publish or perish" paradigm. People should be less focused on what the scientists are doing and focus on the cause of such behavior.
To change the behavior of a group you must correct the feedback loops that control them.

--
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
1. Re:sounds familiar. by Peter+Desnoyers · 2017-10-15 10:24 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Chinese scientists also blame what they call the skewed incentives they say are embedded within their nation's academic system.
  It sounds like they have a similar problem to the US's collapsing "publish or perish" paradigm. People should be less focused on what the scientists are doing and focus on the cause of such behavior.
  To change the behavior of a group you must correct the feedback loops that control them.
  In the US, gross misconduct (like impersonating other scientists in order to review your own papers) is a career death sentence, in part because "publish or perish" is administered by a tenure vote of the people you work with (and compete with), instead of a bean-counting administrator somewhere. There are lots of incentives to do semi-unsavory things - e.g. splitting your work into "least-publishable units", or "P-hacking", where you try every combination of data to see if one of them supports your conclusion - however if you cross the line and start doing things your colleagues aren't willing to do, they'll be happy to come down on you like a ton of bricks.
2. Re:sounds familiar. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 13:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Oh please spare me. I'm involved in nutrition research and I see the contortions others go through to support whatever conclusion is best for the corporation helping fund said study. It's no accident, statistically, when Corporation F funds Study U, that Study U will have an 80% chance to put Corporation F's dubious products in a good or at least neutral light.
3. Re:sounds familiar. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 14:20 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  In the US, gross misconduct (like impersonating other scientists in order to review your own papers) is a career death sentence, in part because "publish or perish" is administered by a tenure vote of the people you work with (and compete with), instead of a bean-counting administrator somewhere.
  https://science.slashdot.org/story/15/02/13/2113248/unearthing-fraud-in-medical-trials
  you new to the research thing?
4. Re:sounds familiar. by Peter+Desnoyers · 2017-10-16 07:37 · Score: 1
  
  Sorry, I'm used to my area of research - computer science - which is a hell of a lot less shady, at least in the US. (probably because almost all the money is being made totally outside of academic and research settings)
  The article you link makes me wonder whether there's a way that publishers (e.g. NEJM and JAMA) could force clinical trial data out into the open. If it were a requirement for publication in the top venues, then the drug companies would have to either 'fess up or work with second-rate researchers. (unfortunately there's probably an option 3, which they'll find and we won't like...)
Theme song for them today from year I was born by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 07:55 · Score: 0

1965 Rolling Stones: "Baby better come back -Baby next week, cuz you see I'm on a losin' streak" from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byn7ZUjz5DY/
* :)
( Enjoy - it's a classic "Oh hey, Hey, HEY - That's what I say...")
APK
P.S.=> "... Cuz I try, & I try, & I try, & I TRY - I can't get no, S A T I S F A C T I O N...", lol... apk
97% of scientists agree by SlaveToTheGrind · 2017-10-15 08:39 · Score: 0

that "peer review" sounds infinitely more sophisticated and credible than "mutual back-scratching."
Doesn't the editor control who reviews by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 08:39 · Score: 0

As a research scientist i am confused by this article. When you submit a paper to a journal you don't have any control or knowledge of who reviews your paper. Thus is the responsibility of the editor.
So how does buying a review even work? Is it not that they are just getting caught out with fake results or plagiarism type incidents?
1. Re:Doesn't the editor control who reviews by SunTzuWarmaster · 2017-10-23 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  Editor: "Please suggest 8 people to review your work"
  Researcher: "Okay, I suggest WellKnownResearcher, their mailing address [POBox that I own], and their E-mail address [WellKnownResearcherTopic@yahoo.com, an E-mail I just registered]"
  Editor: "To:WellKnownResearcherTopic@yahoo.com Body: Dear WellKnownResearcher, what do you think of this paper?"
  Researcher: "Wow. What great results. You should totally 100% publish this in your journal because it is, like, totally legit. Here are some ways in which it can be better, but mostly just act as a disguise."
  Editor: "Dear Researcher, your paper was well reviewed, we are happy to publish it."
  Researcher: "Dear University, I now meet the XXX minimum papers required to graduate requirement." ...
  Time passes and the paper is rescinded for all of the right reasons (cannot replicate, fraudulent review discovered, etc.). Chinese "academic" gets away more-or-less scott free, depending, because academic dishonesty in China is treated very different than, say, the US or EU, where it is punishable by "career death."
1. High technology 2. R&D. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 08:52 · Score: 0

I hope that a new revelation of the people intelligence will be good for everybody.
By example, how to improve the silicon & magneto industries in the nanotechnology for everyones.
Oh & by the way? Imitation?? apk by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 09:28 · Score: 0

See subject: "Is THE sincerest form of flattery" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/boffins_supercharge_the_hosts_file_to_save_users_plagued_by_dns_outages/
* "...when I'm ridin' round the world + when I'm doing this & signing that..."
APK
P.S.=> "... & hey, Hey, HEY - That's what I say..." apk
Capitalism. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 09:32 · Score: 0

The Chinese academic system is far more capitalistic, where income is tied to grants, and grants are tied to qualifications, and qualifications are tied to quantity and popularity (i.e. you need to publish certain numbers of papers of certain qualities by certain metrics), and supervisors are paid according to success in this, and so on.
The best way of achieving in all of this - i.e. where the game is income, rather than research quality - is to cheat.
In the UK, there are a lot of bullshit non-reproducible papers in certain fields, and you are expected to publish vacuous or tenuous stuff as an alternative to publishing nothing at all. But you're not going to become proportionately rich because you have published 10 rather than 5 papers this year.
Can't fake everything... by Peter+Desnoyers · 2017-10-15 10:35 · Score: 4, Funny

Gotta love this quote from one of the linked articles:
"When a lot of the fake peer reviews first came up, one of the reasons the editors spotted them was that the reviewers responded on time"
And in a related story by mnemotronic · 2017-10-15 11:48 · Score: 1

The Saint Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) announced the closure of operations that for the past 4 years have been targeting subscribers and users of Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. According to Agency General Directory Vyascheslav Fontyaev, "The minds of the American public are now under our control via other channels. We no longer need to use artificial Facebook or Twitter accounts to obtain our political targets". Last Saturday the agency claims it had closed or deleted all of it algorithmically created accounts on Facebook and Twitter. This coincided with what Facebook officials say is an unexplained disappearance of 48% of it's user base. Twitter release a press briefing with similar news, claiming that 64% of it's accounts were mysteriously closed and within an 48 hour period. On Monday morning, investors in both companies dumped shares sending the stock price of both companies tumbling; down 77% for Facebook and 44% for Twitter.

Director Fontyaev said that the employees of Internet Research Agency would be retaining most of the Reddit accounts. "The Reddit users are more fun to poke" said Fontyaev. "They accept complete falsifications far quicker and are great fun to toy with. Besides, the restricted "gonewild" sub-reddit is a favorite of the Agency's mostly male work force".

--
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
1. Re:And in a related story by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 22:31 · Score: 0
  
  The Saint Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) announced the closure of operations that for the past 4 years have been targeting subscribers and users of Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. According to Agency General Directory Vyascheslav Fontyaev, "The minds of the American public are now under our control via other channels. We no longer need to use artificial Facebook or Twitter accounts to obtain our political targets". Last Saturday the agency claims it had closed or deleted all of it algorithmically created accounts on Facebook and Twitter. This coincided with what Facebook officials say is an unexplained disappearance of 48% of it's user base. Twitter release a press briefing with similar news, claiming that 64% of it's accounts were mysteriously closed and within an 48 hour period. On Monday morning, investors in both companies dumped shares sending the stock price of both companies tumbling; down 77% for Facebook and 44% for Twitter.
  Director Fontyaev said that the employees of Internet Research Agency would be retaining most of the Reddit accounts. "The Reddit users are more fun to poke" said Fontyaev. "They accept complete falsifications far quicker and are great fun to toy with. Besides, the restricted "gonewild" sub-reddit is a favorite of the Agency's mostly male work force".
  I hope you didn't spend too much time writing that as it didn't turn out very well.
2. Re:And in a related story by mnemotronic · 2017-10-19 18:48 · Score: 1
  
  I hope you didn't spend too much time writing that as it didn't turn out very well.
  Yea. TMI. Gotta learn to get to the point or punch line. Or in this case, have one.
  
  --
  The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
A percentage of all people by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 12:05 · Score: 0

will cheat. It doesn't matter what society they belong to.
Re:I KNEW IT! SHokcer! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 12:07 · Score: 0

How would you know?
But wait! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 12:37 · Score: 0

It's Science!
Can't be wrong.
Thanks Bill Nye, can't wait to hear about you getting your freak on in a few years when the victims come forward.
More fake biology/medical research by riverat1 · 2017-10-15 14:17 · Score: 4, Interesting

One thing I see when I look at faked research and retractions of papers is that it often is in biology and medical research or things like sociology. In the hard sciences like physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, meteorology and dare I say it climatology it doesn't seem to happen nearly as often. Maybe it's harder to fake the data in those sciences or maybe there's just more variability open to interpretation in the results from biology/medicine.
1. Re:More fake biology/medical research by SNRatio · 2017-10-15 17:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  One thing I see when I look at faked research and retractions of papers is that it often is in biology and medical research or things like sociology. In the hard sciences like physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, meteorology and dare I say it climatology it doesn't seem to happen nearly as often. Maybe it's harder to fake the data in those sciences or maybe there's just more variability open to interpretation in the results from biology/medicine.
  I think a big part is that when it's medicine the media is more likely to pick up the story. Jan Hendrik Schön was one of the biggest scandals - but it didn't really make a big splash in the news because solid state physics just isn't something most people get worked up about. Ditto for Adrian Maxim. So unless you are a regular at Retraction Watch, you hear about Wakefield and Hwang Woo-Suk (cloning), but not about physics or engineering fraud.
  I also wonder if the problem is really that much worse than it was in the past. Granted, academia is more competitive than it used to be. But really, the big change is that it is so much easier to find fraud than it was in the past. You're right - it is not that hard to make some fake data for a biology paper. You photoshop the picture of your gel (a technique for showing which proteins are present in a sample and whether they are interacting with each other) to show the results you want. 30 or 40 years ago: same thing, though you would have had to do it manually. But now image analysis can catch that easily. Ditto for plagiarism. Ditto for analyzing sets of numbers to see if they were observed or invented. And because it is easier to examine for fraud, and fraud is actually routinely talked about, more people are looking for it than in the past. Now, fraud stands a good chance of being caught. Back then: not so much.
2. Re:More fake biology/medical research by riverat1 · 2017-10-15 18:21 · Score: 1
  
  It always surprises me that smart guys like most scientists are think they can get away with stuff like that. After all sooner or later some one else is likely going to try and use their results and discover their fraud especially it it appears to be ground breaking research.
  Also it's true that sometimes retractions are a result of honest mistakes that weren't caught by peer review rather than by attempted fraud.
3. Re:More fake biology/medical research by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-16 03:21 · Score: 0
  
  I'm of the opinion that it is definitely more of a problem than it was in the past. We can pretend all we like that the coarsening of morality doesn't have an effect on human interaction at all levels, but it does. People tend to live up or live down to the level you expect from them. Of course there are always people will behave in an immoral matter, but when society as a whole tends to shun such people most members of that society will see risk in acting in such a way.
  Also for many years the population of serious scientists in a specific field was small enough that someone who cheated was quickly caught, both because everybody knew everybody and because scientists actually did a lot of reproducibility studies. One reason that we find it difficult to catch cheaters today is that no one wants to fund studies that check previous results. So often years go by and many papers cite studies that are either flawed or down right lies. This is a great problem in sociology and psychology because not only do the studies typically take a long time, they also are primarily aimed at supporting a specific political agenda, so unpopular results tend to be buried and flawed and unfounded popular results tend to be protected from criticism.
  Medical studies funded by those who have the most to gain monetarily are another problem. They have the most to spend and the most to make if the study comes out their way. It's a tough problem.
4. Re:More fake biology/medical research by Peter+Desnoyers · 2017-10-16 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  In the hard sciences there are few companies that make money off of the success or failure of an academic research project.
  That doesn't explain sociology; however searching through retractionwatch.com I'm not sure how much misconduct there is in that field (at least within the US and western Europe) as opposed to just plain errors. Which shouldn't be surprising in a field with small sample sizes, poor funding, and high noise.
parent is troll. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 15:42 · Score: 0

Because all those televangelists never cheat at all do they...
Religion is the worst thing invented to pretend to deal with morality.
oy vey by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 17:16 · Score: 0

this article must have been posted by some racist nazi
shut it down
So many ways to cheat the system by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-15 17:59 · Score: 0

Ten Simple Rules for Scientific Fraud & Misconduct (https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01562601)
Rule 4: Write your own peer-review
It is surprisingly easy to do. As you submit, you will o en be asked to give name of possible reviewers. Just provide phony names, along with email addresses that will be redirected to your mailbox. You will soon receive an invitation to review your own work, and you’re then free to state how brilliant your own work is. Of course, you’ll have to write a review that looks like an actual review. If you’re Machiavellian, you can introduce some factual errors in your manuscript, then report them in your review, making it look thorough. Make sure not to send you review before the deadline because as reported by Elizabeth Wager (Stigbrand, 2017), editors have spo ed fake reviews in part because reviewers responded promptly. Unfortunately, editors and publishers are now aware of the scam (Ferguson, Marcus, & Oransky, 2014) and have taken counter-measures (Haug, 2015). For example, some of them no longer o er authors the option of recommending reviewers or if they do, the recommendation is restricted to a list of certi ed reviewers. If you insist on writing your own peer-review, you’ll have to be creative and nd new ways to game the system.
what I saw by Anonymous Coward · 2017-10-16 03:55 · Score: 0

Back in the day like 15 years ago when I was reviewing CS papers, most of the ones from China were utter garbage, mainly just rehashing what others had done. One day I got one that wasn't total garbage. However, they had plagiarized a couple of paragraphs in a 3 page paper. When I called it to the attention of the editor, the response was something like "Well, they don't really understand our ways." They were just told to change the paragraphs.