By Josh Fischman
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published September 30, 2012
Scientists appear to have figured out a new way to avoid any bad prepublication reviews that dissuade journals from publishing their articles: Write positive reviews themselves, under other people's names.
In incidents involving four scientists—the latest case coming to light two weeks ago—journal editors say authors got to critique their own papers by suggesting reviewers with contact e-mails that actually went to themselves.
The glowing endorsements got the work into Experimental Parasitology, Pharmaceutical Biology, and several other journals. Fake reviews even got a pair of mathematics articles into journals published by Elsevier, the academic publishing giant, which has a system in place intended to thwart such misconduct. The frauds have produced retractions of about 30 papers to date.
"I find it very shocking," said Laura Schmidt, publisher in charge of mathematics journals at Elsevier. "It's very serious, very manipulative, and very deliberate."
The entire story is here.
Showing posts with label Research Fraud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research Fraud. Show all posts
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
False positives: fraud and misconduct are threatening scientific research
High-profile cases and modern technology are putting scientific deceit under the microscope
By Alok Jha
The Guardian
Originally published September 13, 2012
Dirk Smeesters had spent several years of his career as a social psychologist at Erasmus University in Rotterdam studying how consumers behaved in different situations. Did colour have an effect on what they bought? How did death-related stories in the media affect how people picked products? And was it better to use supermodels in cosmetics adverts than average-looking women?
The questions are certainly intriguing, but unfortunately for anyone wanting truthful answers, some of Smeesters' work turned out to be fraudulent. The psychologist, who admitted "massaging" the data in some of his papers, resigned from his position in June after being investigated by his university, which had been tipped off by Uri Simonsohn from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Simonsohn carried out an independent analysis of the data and was suspicious of how perfect many of Smeesters' results seemed when, statistically speaking, there should have been more variation in his measurements.
The case, which led to two scientific papers being retracted, came on the heels of an even bigger fraud, uncovered last year, perpetrated by the Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel. He was found to have fabricated data for years and published it in at least 30 peer-reviewed papers, including a report in the journal Science about how untidy environments may encourage discrimination.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Former Harvard professor Marc Hauser fabricated, manipulated data, US says
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
Boston Globe
Originally published September 5, 2012
Marc Hauser, a prolific scientist and popular psychology professor who last summer resigned from Harvard University, had fabricated data, manipulated results in multiple experiments, and described how studies were conducted in factually incorrect ways, according to the findings of a federal research oversight agency posted online Wednesday.
Although Hauser “neither admits nor denies committing research misconduct,” he does, the report states, accept that federal authorities “found evidence of research misconduct.”
The entire story is here.
There are other stories related to Marc Hauser on this blog.
Boston Globe
Originally published September 5, 2012
Marc Hauser, a prolific scientist and popular psychology professor who last summer resigned from Harvard University, had fabricated data, manipulated results in multiple experiments, and described how studies were conducted in factually incorrect ways, according to the findings of a federal research oversight agency posted online Wednesday.
The report provides the greatest insight yet into the problems that triggered a three-year internal university investigation that concluded in 2010 that Hauser, a star professor and public intellectual, had committed eight instances of scientific misconduct. The document, which will be published in the Federal Register Thursday, found six cases in which Hauser engaged in research misconduct in work supported by the National Institutes of Health. One paper was retracted and two were corrected, and other problems were found in unpublished work.
The entire story is here.
There are other stories related to Marc Hauser on this blog.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Fraud-Detection Tool Could Shake Up Psychology
By Martin Enserink
ScienceInsider
Originally published July 3, 2012
The most startling thing about the latest scandal to hit social psychology isn’t the alleged violation of scientific ethics itself, scientists say, or the fact that it happened in the Netherlands, the home of fallen research star and serial fraudster Diederik Stapel, whose case shook the field to its core less than a year ago. Instead, what fascinates them most is how the new case, which led to the resignation of psychologist Dirk Smeesters of Erasmus University Rotterdam and the requested retraction of two of his papers by his school, came to light: through an unpublished statistical method to detect data fraud.
The technique was developed by Uri Simonsohn, a social psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who tells Science that he has also notified a U.S. university of a psychology paper his method flagged.
That paper’s main author, too, has been investigated and has resigned, he says. As Science went to press, Simonsohn said he planned to reveal details about his method, and both cases, as early as this week.
ScienceInsider
Originally published July 3, 2012
The most startling thing about the latest scandal to hit social psychology isn’t the alleged violation of scientific ethics itself, scientists say, or the fact that it happened in the Netherlands, the home of fallen research star and serial fraudster Diederik Stapel, whose case shook the field to its core less than a year ago. Instead, what fascinates them most is how the new case, which led to the resignation of psychologist Dirk Smeesters of Erasmus University Rotterdam and the requested retraction of two of his papers by his school, came to light: through an unpublished statistical method to detect data fraud.
The technique was developed by Uri Simonsohn, a social psychologist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who tells Science that he has also notified a U.S. university of a psychology paper his method flagged.
That paper’s main author, too, has been investigated and has resigned, he says. As Science went to press, Simonsohn said he planned to reveal details about his method, and both cases, as early as this week.
If it proves valid, Simonsohn’s technique might find other possible cases of misconduct lurking in the vast body of scientific literature. “There’s a lot of interest in this,” says Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who recently launched an examination of replicability in social psychology findings.
There are other stories about Diederik Stapel on this site.
A New Record for Retractions? (Part 2)
By Dennis Normile
ScienceInsider
Originally published on July 2, 2012
An investigating committee in Japan has concluded that a Japanese anesthesiologist, Yoshitaka Fujii, fabricated a whopping 172 papers over the past 19 years. Among other problems, the panel, set up by the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists, could find no records of patients and no evidence medication was ever administered.
The fabrications could produce a record number of retractions by a single author if the journals, as seems likely, decide to retract the papers. ScienceInsider was unable to reach Fujii, who had asked the society not to provide the media with his contact information.
The entire story is here.
ScienceInsider
Originally published on July 2, 2012
An investigating committee in Japan has concluded that a Japanese anesthesiologist, Yoshitaka Fujii, fabricated a whopping 172 papers over the past 19 years. Among other problems, the panel, set up by the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists, could find no records of patients and no evidence medication was ever administered.
"It is as if someone sat at a desk and wrote a novel about a research idea," the committee wrote in a 29 June summary report posted in Japanese on the society's Web site.
The entire story is here.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Alzheimer's research fraud case set for trial
By Toni Clarke
Reuters Health News
Last updated May 11, 2012
Two Harvard teaching hospitals and a prominent Alzheimer's disease researcher accused of using falsified data to obtain a government research grant are set to stand trial after a federal appeals court said this week that a lower court erred when it dismissed the case.
The lawsuit accuses Marilyn Albert, a former professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she was conducting research, of submitting a grant application based on manipulated data.
The data showed results from a trial were scientifically significant when in fact they were not, according to the lawsuit.
Brigham and Women's Hospital, which collaborated on the research, is also a defendant in the case. The lawsuit was brought in 2006 under the False Claims Act, a 150-year-old federal law designed to recover government funds appropriated through fraud.
This is the first time a lawsuit dealing with alleged scientific fraud has been allowed to progress to trial under the False Claims Act, according to Michael Kohn, a lawyer with Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto in Washington, D.C.
The entire story is here.
Reuters Health News
Last updated May 11, 2012
Two Harvard teaching hospitals and a prominent Alzheimer's disease researcher accused of using falsified data to obtain a government research grant are set to stand trial after a federal appeals court said this week that a lower court erred when it dismissed the case.
The lawsuit accuses Marilyn Albert, a former professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where she was conducting research, of submitting a grant application based on manipulated data.
The data showed results from a trial were scientifically significant when in fact they were not, according to the lawsuit.
Brigham and Women's Hospital, which collaborated on the research, is also a defendant in the case. The lawsuit was brought in 2006 under the False Claims Act, a 150-year-old federal law designed to recover government funds appropriated through fraud.
This is the first time a lawsuit dealing with alleged scientific fraud has been allowed to progress to trial under the False Claims Act, according to Michael Kohn, a lawyer with Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto in Washington, D.C.
The entire story is here.
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