Some scientists including professors may cheat, plagiarize and steal around - but may get away with continued plagiarism. Is it the honor and responsibility of the true scientists to make sure those criminals get a correct punishment? And what, if the university, as well as the ministries of research and education completely fail - is it up to the honorable, real scientists to make sure the plagiators won't get away and win prizes?
This is an interesting topic, almost too sensitive. Science has for a long time the "last bastion of trust and respect" in the Western world. But scientist are just humans. Not sure why one would expect that scientists are fundamentally different from the rest of the population. They just wear white coats and publish the "truth", build the knowledge base for the future. Would be nice if that base is based on real and true data.
But I assume it is like in most other areas of society; there is corruption there is the desire for fame and fortune and nowadays just add the drive to survive in the "business". Has this situation deteriorated: yes I think so. There are endless examples of sloppiness, fraud and neglect in the scientific literature and the discussion of this problem (this discussion makes it from time to time into the New York Times and eventually may erode the trust of the general population or more importantly of the elites that run Western societies). Once that trust is eroded enough, funding will dry up more and then there might be some stuttering of the scientific machinery.
So, just to keep this "scientific business" going and to advance humankind, it is pivotal to eliminate the worst offenses, the worst scientific fraud and rebuilt science with people that belong into science, follow a certain code, and get rid off this "business" talk in science. Once science becomes a business all is lost.
The Poldermans' case may be an interesting one to illuminate the current state of biomedical science and the star and hero mania in the field that is , bottom line, based on massive amounts of little builders, each contributing bricks of various sizes and quality to the the process of building the "wall of science". There is no master builder (to keep the Lego terminology). The desire to have "stars" and "geniuses" is detrimental to the entire enterprise. The Don Poldermans' case is also extreme in the sense that it may involve actual harm to patients. I have no idea what happened in detail but is definitely messed up. Add to this the obsession with breakthroughs, whether real or just hyped- how often did we already cure cancer!, and you have a storm brewing up that will not be funny. The sad thing is that this is widespread. There seems little interest in true science but lots of interest in glossy journal with fancy articles.
Then there is this thing with "scientific career". Sounds like a paradox but the use of this term is so widely used that nobody seems to think about the consequences of his terminology. This goes back to the trend to make scientific research a business. How can it be a business. It;'s the same as trying to make education, health care, national defense businesses.
As said, there are endless examples. Just today in the NYT was another example mentioned in the book review section about the guys who build one of the first computers (ENIAC) and how they got their idea from an guy in Indian or Ohio, having "fantastic" stuff in his garage or basement. That guy eventually won a law suit in the 70s.
Then there is the acid bath miracle stem cell story that ended so far with a suicide (Sasai; http://online.wsj.com/articles/japanese-stem-cell-scientist-yoshiki-sasai-is-dead-1407206857). What is wrong? Too much longing to make it big, become a star?
Unfortunately, it is the same as in other areas of society (classic: Wall Street and the real business world): if you leave it to self-control, there will be escapades, eventually leading to serious waste and damage.
I would go with numbers dished up by Ioannidis (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False; John P. A. Ioannidis) and estimate that there is something wrong with about half the articles that are published after peer-review. With that number in mind, it is hard to see how to reform the "business". Going after the big cases may help but eventually it shows how we have brought the damage onto ourselves through self-control or better the lack of it.
In the end I am not sure how to answer this question. How to reform the system? As Richard Smith may have said:"Most scientific studies are wrong, and they are wrong because scientists are interested in funding and careers rather than truth."
This is an interesting topic, almost too sensitive. Science has for a long time the "last bastion of trust and respect" in the Western world. But scientist are just humans. Not sure why one would expect that scientists are fundamentally different from the rest of the population. They just wear white coats and publish the "truth", build the knowledge base for the future. Would be nice if that base is based on real and true data.
But I assume it is like in most other areas of society; there is corruption there is the desire for fame and fortune and nowadays just add the drive to survive in the "business". Has this situation deteriorated: yes I think so. There are endless examples of sloppiness, fraud and neglect in the scientific literature and the discussion of this problem (this discussion makes it from time to time into the New York Times and eventually may erode the trust of the general population or more importantly of the elites that run Western societies). Once that trust is eroded enough, funding will dry up more and then there might be some stuttering of the scientific machinery.
So, just to keep this "scientific business" going and to advance humankind, it is pivotal to eliminate the worst offenses, the worst scientific fraud and rebuilt science with people that belong into science, follow a certain code, and get rid off this "business" talk in science. Once science becomes a business all is lost.
The Poldermans' case may be an interesting one to illuminate the current state of biomedical science and the star and hero mania in the field that is , bottom line, based on massive amounts of little builders, each contributing bricks of various sizes and quality to the the process of building the "wall of science". There is no master builder (to keep the Lego terminology). The desire to have "stars" and "geniuses" is detrimental to the entire enterprise. The Don Poldermans' case is also extreme in the sense that it may involve actual harm to patients. I have no idea what happened in detail but is definitely messed up. Add to this the obsession with breakthroughs, whether real or just hyped- how often did we already cure cancer!, and you have a storm brewing up that will not be funny. The sad thing is that this is widespread. There seems little interest in true science but lots of interest in glossy journal with fancy articles.
Then there is this thing with "scientific career". Sounds like a paradox but the use of this term is so widely used that nobody seems to think about the consequences of his terminology. This goes back to the trend to make scientific research a business. How can it be a business. It;'s the same as trying to make education, health care, national defense businesses.
As said, there are endless examples. Just today in the NYT was another example mentioned in the book review section about the guys who build one of the first computers (ENIAC) and how they got their idea from an guy in Indian or Ohio, having "fantastic" stuff in his garage or basement. That guy eventually won a law suit in the 70s.
Then there is the acid bath miracle stem cell story that ended so far with a suicide (Sasai; http://online.wsj.com/articles/japanese-stem-cell-scientist-yoshiki-sasai-is-dead-1407206857). What is wrong? Too much longing to make it big, become a star?
Unfortunately, it is the same as in other areas of society (classic: Wall Street and the real business world): if you leave it to self-control, there will be escapades, eventually leading to serious waste and damage.
I would go with numbers dished up by Ioannidis (Why Most Published Research Findings Are False; John P. A. Ioannidis) and estimate that there is something wrong with about half the articles that are published after peer-review. With that number in mind, it is hard to see how to reform the "business". Going after the big cases may help but eventually it shows how we have brought the damage onto ourselves through self-control or better the lack of it.
In the end I am not sure how to answer this question. How to reform the system? As Richard Smith may have said:"Most scientific studies are wrong, and they are wrong because scientists are interested in funding and careers rather than truth."
In China, many scientists cheat and plagiarize. The main purpose of them is to make money, even the academician of Chinese Academy of Science.
What a pity! !!
I started to randomly ask scientists to give me a number, the percentage of publications that they think is not reliable in regard to cheating, poor quality controls, poor controls overall, poor quality of the paper, unreliable data in the paper, just not trustworthy data. The answers are not good. The percentage of poor quality papers overall seem to be too high to sustain a healthy scientific enterprise suggesting that poor quality and cheating are acceptable techniques to survive in science...
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