Muhammad - of course it is true and a long-standing problem that researchers may be tempted to manipulate data to increase the standing of their findings and/or avoid negative outcomes. Yes - it is also true that low quality journals will often lack reviewers who have the capacity/knowledge-base to 'spot' data manipulation. This is where critical appraisal skills are required from the 'reader'. Critical readers should be able to identify when data manipulation is at play - either through poor reporting and/or a lack of detail and a rigour trail. Either way - where suspected - those studies should be put to one side and not used/cited. Poor quality studies should result in poor citation/recognition for them.

Muhammad - of course it is true and a long-standing problem that researchers may be tempted to manipulate data to increase the standing of their findings and/or avoid negative outcomes. Yes - it is also true that low quality journals will often lack reviewers who have the capacity/knowledge-base to 'spot' data manipulation. This is where critical appraisal skills are required from the 'reader'. Critical readers should be able to identify when data manipulation is at play - either through poor reporting and/or a lack of detail and a rigour trail. Either way - where suspected - those studies should be put to one side and not used/cited. Poor quality studies should result in poor citation/recognition for them.

The researcher is doing his/her best to ensure the validity and truthfulness of data especially through triangulation which helps him/her corroborate the findings from two research tools or more. Hence, we cannot say that data is not reliable since our methodology of testing the hypothesis is correct.

Of course! A research outcome driven from manipulated data may lead to faulty decisions. Lower research quality, falsification, manipulation could affect the research productivity lead to wastage of opportunity, manpower and effort.

Yes, your observation is true partially...

but not completely...

I strongly believe we are polluting the research world...Adhering to positive ethics and making the world understand prevailing situations are key to cleaning up this growing mess. Reason why we researchers ought to start by doing the right thing

Dean Whitehead Thank you for your nice explanation. Yes we should not cite such poor reports in our relevant manuscript.

Mounya Abdaoui Hassan Izzeddin Sarsak Isaac Sarfo Thanks for your reply and clarification Md. Shiblur Rahaman Yes, my observation is true partially. But I think this is surely polluting our science world. Young researchers like me should understand the quality of the research not the number of publications. Thank you for your contribution.

Dear Professor dr. Muhammad Arifur Rahman your question is relevant. I know that scientists are playing with statistical (mathematical) tools in order to find a relevant set of correlations and intercorrelation that can be modeled. In social sciences, there are two methods to prevent this 'data picking' to happen. The first method is a separate publication that shows methods and techniques (including hypotheses) been used before data collection happens. The second method is using Baysian statistics instead of classical ones with p values of

Dear Carl HD Steinmetz

Thank you for your reply. Firstly I am a young researcher not a professor and dr. Your elaboration is fine but I found many researchers publish their report with poor sampling and data collection. For instance, Mr. A was supposed to survey 1000 fishers but conducted only 100 while others manipulated! To shape it a good quality report, they do data manipulation and present it nicely which is really very bad. Another example is like Mr. A collected 3 fish samples from market just by asking the source of fish he want. Actually, the seller doesn't know the source but respond "Yes, this fish is from that river/location". Mr. A studied phylogeny and population genetics! What would his result indicate? Thus these reports are polluting research world. Unfortunately, there is no way to stop it!

Sorry dear Muhammad Arifur Rahman this a clear example of scientific fraud. Sorry to hear this. Did you wrote a comments to the magazine that published this article? All the best, Carl

Its OK respected Carl HD Steinmetz Yes I mean scientific fraud. Sorry to say, I didn't because the authors are around me. But I have realized this not only happening around me but also in the World. Some articles and project reports seem to me like that. Sometimes "self-citation" also like that. Thank you again.

Honesty and the authenticity should be the first priority of any research. Research should be focused on identifying problems and developing strategies, not on publishing good quality articles.

So, in my opinion, we should avoid data manipulation.