Scientific misconduct
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Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in professional scientific research. The main forms of scientific misconduct are:
- fabrication--the publication of deliberately false or misleading research, often subdivided in:
- fabrication--the actual making up of research data and (the intent of) publishing them
- falsification--manipulation of research data and processes or omitting critical data or results
- plagiarism--the act of taking credit (or attempting to take credit) for the work of another. A subset is citation plagiarism-- willful or negligent failure to appropriately credit other or prior discoverers, so as to give an improper impression of priority. AKA, "citation amnesia", the "disregard syndrome" and "bibliographic negligence". Arguably, this is the most common type of scientific misconduct. Improper credit can also be inadvertently-assigned, see Dulbecco's law.
- the violation of ethical standards regarding human and animal experiments, such as the standard that a human subject of the experiment must give informed consent to the experiment.
Example definitions from a Lancet review on Handling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries: [1]
- Danish Definition: "Intention(al) or gross negligence leading to fabrication of the scientific message or a false credit or emphasis given to a scientist"
- Swedish Definition: "Intention{al} distortion of the research process by fabrication of data, text, hypothesis, or methods from another researcher's manuscript form or publication; or distortion of the research process in other ways."
In addition, some academics consider suppression--the failure to publish significant findings due to the results being adverse to the interests of the researcher or his/her sponsor(s)--to be a form of misconduct as well; this is discussed below.
In some cases, scientific misconduct may also constitute violations of the law, but not always. Being accused of the activities described in this article is a serious matter for a practicing scientist, with severe consequences should it be determined that a researcher intentionally or carelessly engaged in misconduct.
Three percent of the 3,475 research institutions that report to the US Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Research Integrity, indicate some form of scientific misconduct. (Source: Wired Magazine, March 2004)
The validity of the methods and results of scientific papers are often scrutinized in journal clubs. In this venue, members can decide amongst themselves with the help of peers if a scientific paper's ethical standards are met.
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[edit] Motivation to commit scientific misconduct
According to David Goodstein of Caltech, there are three main motivators for scientists to commit misconduct, which are briefly summarised here.
- Career pressure
- Science is still a very strongly career-driven discipline. Scientists depend on a good reputation to receive ongoing support and funding; and a good reputation relies largely on the publication of high-profile scientific papers. Hence, there is a strong imperative to "publish or perish". Clearly, this may motivate desperate (or fame-hungry) scientists to fabricate results.
- Believing that one "knows the right answer"
- Even on the rare occasions when scientists do falsify data, they almost never do so with the active intent to introduce false information into the body of scientific knowledge. Rather, they intend to introduce a fact that they believe is true, without going to the trouble and difficulty of actually performing the experiments required.
- The ability to get away with it
- In many scientific fields, results are often difficult to reproduce accurately, being obscured by noise, artifacts and other extraneous data. That means that even if a scientist does falsify data, they can expect to get away with it - or at least claim innocence if their results conflict with others in the same field.
[edit] Cases of alleged scientific misconduct and related incidents
Below is an incomplete list of cases of alleged scientific misconduct. Some of the cases are relatively minor, such as Robert Millikan's data selection in his famous oil-drop experiment, which, while potentially suspicious, does not seem to have been used in a misleading way or change the fundamental correctness of the experimental results. In other cases, the accusations are for things such as outright fabrication or fraud and are considered very serious. In some cases the accusations are in regards to the ethics of research subjects. In some cases, the question as to whether they are actually instances of misconduct or not is still in debate.
- Emil Abderhalden's "defensive enzymes" (biochemistry, immunology)
- Elias Alsabti scandal (cancer immunology)
- David Baltimore and the Thereza Imanishi-Kari affair in (immunology)
- Jacques Benveniste affair (immunology)
- Bruno Bettelheim (psychology)
- Aubrey Blumsohn Procter & Gamble Affair [1] (Medicine)
- The Bogdanov Affair (physics)
- Stephen E. Breuning scandal (medicine)
- Cyril Burt affair (psychology)
- Ranjit Chandra controversy (nutrition)
- Inge Czaja (plant biology)
- John Darsee scandal (medicine)
- Charles Dawson's Piltdown man (anthropology)
- Jacques Deprat (the Deprat Affair)(geology)
- Shinichi Fujimura (archaeology)
- Robert Gallo (virology)
- Woo-Suk Hwang (Hwang Woo-Suk) (biotechnology)
- John Lott (sociology)
- Dănuț Marcu (mathematics)
- William McBride (medicine)
- Sir Roy Meadow (medicine) [2]
- Raghunath Anant Mashelkar
- Gregor Mendel's impossibly perfect data (genetics)
- Robert Millikan's data selection in his famous oil-drop experiment (physics)
- Victor Ninov's superheavy element (physics)
- Leo A. Paquette [3][4] (chemistry)
- Luk Van Parijs (immunology)
- Eric Poehlman (medicine)
- Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann's cold fusion
- Reiner Protsch (anthropology)
- George Ricaurte (medicine), see also Retracted article on neurotoxicity of ecstasy
- Karen M. Ruggiero (social psychology) [5]
- Gerald Schatten (biotechnology)
- Jan Hendrik Schön scandal (physics)
- Dalibor Sames (chemistry)
- Jon Sudbø, Andrew Jess Dannenberg (cancer research)
- William Summerlin scandal (cancer immunology)
- Kazunari Taira [6](molecular biology)
- Andrew Wakefield MMR-autism
- John B. Watson's Little Albert (child psychology)
- Ian Wilmut (biotechnology)
- Bjørn Lomborg (Environmentalism/climatology)
[edit] Consequences
The consequences of scientific fraud vary based on the severity of the fraud, the level of notice it receives, and how long it goes undetected. Even a case of plagiarism can cause damage through resources being misdirected to others who may be less capable of using them effectively and certainly are less deserving of them.
For cases of fabricated evidence, the consequences can be wide ranging, with others working to confirm (or refute) the false finding, or with research agendas being distorted to address the fraudulent evidence. The Piltdown Man fraud is a case in point: The significance of the bona-fide fossils being found was muted for decades because they disagreed with Piltdown Man and the pre-conceived notions that those faked fossils supported. In addition, the prominent paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward spent time at Piltdown each year until he died trying to find more Piltdown Man remains. The misdirection of resources kept others from taking the real fossils more seriously and delayed the reaching of a correct understanding of human evolution. (The Taung Child, which should have been the death knell for the view that the human brain evolved first, was instead treated very critically because of its disagreement with the Piltdown Man evidence.)
Piltdown Man was an extreme example, but any such case impedes scientific progress in a similar manner.
[edit] Rehabilitation
The accusation of scientific misconduct is as controversial as knowledge is generally under construction. It may occur that the scientific community make errors in accusing one of their colleagues. Generally, it is not so damaging for knowledge which still progress. The scientific community is known for its self-regulation. But, it can break careers and destinies and anyone is set to face its errors. Still, the French community of geologists made a public rehabilitation of Jacques Deprat who was accused in 1919. It seems to be the unique case of rehabilitation in the history of sciences.
[edit] Suppression/non-publication of data
A related issue concerns the deliberate suppression, failure to publish, or selective release of the findings of scientific studies. Such cases may not be strictly definable as scientific misconduct as the deliberate falsification of results is not present. However, in such cases the intent may nevertheless be to deliberately deceive. Studies may be suppressed or remain unpublished because the findings are perceived to undermine the commercial, political or other interests of the sponsoring agent or because they fail to support the ideological goals of the researcher. Examples include the failure to publish studies if they demonstrate the harm of a new drug, or truthfully publishing the benefits of a treatment while omitting harmful side-effects.
This is distinguishable from other concepts such as bad science, junk science or pseudoscience where the criticism centres on the methodology or underlying assumptions. It may be possible in some cases to use statistical methods to show that the datasets offered in relation to a given field are incomplete. However this may simply reflect the existence of real-world restrictions on researchers without justifying more sinister conclusions.
Some cases go beyond the failure to publish complete reports of all findings with researchers knowingly making false claims based on falsified data. This falls clearly under the definition of scientific misconduct, even if the result was achieved by suppressing data. In the case of Raphael B. Stricker, M.D.[7], for instance, the U.S. Office of Research Integrity has found the removal of samples from a data set in order to reach a desired conclusion to be grounds for disbarment from funding.
[edit] Responsibility of authors and of coauthors
Authors and coauthors of scientific publications have a variety of responsibilities. Contravention of the rules of scientific authorship may lead to a charge of scientific misconduct. All authors, including coauthors, are expected to have made reasonable attempts to check findings submitted to academic journals for publication. Simultaneous submission of scientific findings to more than one journal or duplicate publication of findings is usually regarded as misconduct, under what is known as the Ingelfinger rule, named after the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine 1967-1977, Franz Ingelfinger [8].
Guest authorship (where there is stated authorship in the absence of involvement, also known as gift authorship) and ghost authorship (where the real author is not listed as an author) are commonly regarded as forms of research misconduct. In some cases coauthors of faked research have been accused of inappropriate behavior or research misconduct for failing to verify reports authored by others or by a commercial sponsor. Examples include the case of Gerald Schatten who co-authored with Hwang Woo-Suk, the case of Professor Geoffrey Chamberlain who co-authored papers with the Pearce (see lessons from the Pearce affair), and the coauthors with Jan Hendrik Schön at Bell Laboratories. More recent cases include the Charles Nemeroff, then the editor-in-chief of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the so-called Sheffield Actonel affair.
Authors are expected to keep all study data for later examination even after publication. The failure to keep data may be regarded as misconduct. Some scientific journals require that authors provide information to allow readers to determine whether the authors might have commercial or non-commercial conflicts of interest. Authors are also commonly required to provide information about ethical aspects of research, particularly where research involves human or animal participants or use of biological material. Provision of incorrect information to journals may be regarded as misconduct. Financial pressures on universities have encouraged this type of misconduct. The majority of recent cases of alleged misconduct involving undisclosed conflicts of interest or failure of the authors to have seen scientific data involve collaborative research between scientists and biotechnology companies (Nemeroff, Blumsohn).
[edit] Photo Manipulation
In 2006, the Journal of Cell Biology gained publicity [9] for instituting tests to detect photo manipulation in papers that were being considered for publication. This was in response to the increased usage of programs by scientists such as Photoshop, which facilitate photo manipulation. Since then more publishers, including the Nature Publishing Group are instituting similar test and require authors to minimize and specify the extent of photo manipulation when a manuscript is submitted for publication
Although the type of manipulation that is allowed can depend greatly on the type of experiment that is presented and also differ from one journal to another, in general the following manipulations are not allowed:
- splicing together different images to represent a single experiment
- changing brightness and contrast of only a part of the image
- any change that conceals information, even when it is considered to be aspecific, which includes:
- changing brightness and contrast to leave only the most intense signal
- using clone tools to hide information
- showing only a very small part of the photograph so that additional information is not visible
And more in general, most journals nowadays urge authors to use photo manipulation with restraint and great care.
[edit] See also
- Academic scandal
- Archaeological forgery
- Bioethics
- Cudos
- DCSD - Danish committee which investigated Bjørn Lomborg
- Engineering ethics
- Lysenkoism, government-supported scientific misconduct
- Retraction
- Sham peer review
- Fabrication (science)
- Research ethics
- Category:Scientific misconduct
- Category:Hoaxes in science
- Category:Scientific skepticism
[edit] References
- ^ (July 1999) "Review: Handling of scientific dishonesty in the Nordic countries". The Lancet 354: 11-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-02.
- William Broad & Nicholas Wade, Betrayers of the Truth. Oxford University Press, 1982
- Brock K. Kilbourne and Maria T. Kilbourne, The Dark Side of Science, Proc. of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division, AAAS, April 30, 1983.
[edit] External links
- whaaz a science wiki featuring recent articles on scientific misconduct
- http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993817
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathy.shtml
- http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/kammerer/
- http://www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/2002/02JF/02jfgoo.htm
- Scientists don't read the papers they cite
- Lancet article on the hahdling of Scientific Misconduct in Scandinavian countries
- Citation Plagiarism
