Request to Falsify Data Published In Chemistry Journal 163
New submitter Jim_Austin writes "A note inadvertently left in the 'supplemental information' of a journal article appears to instruct a subordinate scientist to fabricate data. Quoting: 'The first author of the article, "Synthesis, Structure, and Catalytic Studies of Palladium and Platinum Bis-Sulfoxide Complexes," published online ahead of print in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal Organometallics, is Emma E. Drinkel of the University of Zurich in Switzerland. The online version of the article includes a link to this supporting information file. The bottom of page 12 of the document contains this instruction: "Emma, please insert NMR data here! where are they? and for this compound, just make up an elemental analysis ..." We are making no judgments here. We don't know who wrote this, and some commenters have noted that "just make up" could be an awkward choice of words by a non-native speaker of English who intended to instruct his student to make up a sample and then conduct the elemental analysis. Other commenters aren't buying it.'"
Re:Very well could be (Score:5, Interesting)
That looks like German wording of "make up" = "do", nothing nefarious about it, slow news day?
Conspiracy to falsify results? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not disturbed by the note, and yes it's likely a poor choice of words from a non-English speaker.
Are we now condemning conspiracy to submit fraudulent information? I thought fraud was the bad act.
I've worked with non-English speaking students, and there are a surprising number of awkward constructions that you wouldn't notice as a native speaker.
For example, one multiple-choice optics test question had this answer: "The image is half as large".
The phrase "half as large" translates simultaneously into "big" and "small" at the same time... it was pointed out that many students didn't know what this meant. The first rewrite came out as "half the size", but since many cultures implicitly measure size in terms of area instead of height, lots of people misinterpreted this as well (half the height = 1/4 the area). Having an answer "none of the above" further confused the issue. The test should have been specific in saying "half the height".
I've proofread/edited more than 10 papers written by foreign types, and "twisted meanings" are quite common - phrases that seem syntactically reasonable but which have a different meaning to a native speaker. (I grew up in Amish territory - statements like "Sarah is wonderful sick today" and "throw papa down the stairs his hat" were commonplace.)
I wouldn't think twice about the note in the paper. Unless the researcher actually makes up the analysis out of whole cloth it's not a problem.
Science is about evidence, not hearsay.
Re:Why bother with the panic? (Score:5, Interesting)