How Common Is Scientific Misconduct? 253
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.'"
Then how can we know? (Score:3, Funny)
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yeah... (Score:4, Funny)
Missed one statistic (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Of course they're not all honest (Score:3, Funny)
The solution is to give up on science and rely on religion, Ray Comfort is a geniusa and Kevin Hovind was right all along! </sarcasm>
Re:Then how can we know? (Score:1, Funny)
I like the results I get, but my partner seems to fake hers
meta meta (Score:2, Funny)