I do sometimes wonder if the same attributes that puts people at their top of their fields is the same atribute that makes them more willing to sacrifice their integrity for prestige... It seems like this just happens too frequently (or maybe it just appears that way because these are media reported).
I'm not sure what direction of causation you have in mind but as someone in academics (tenured professor etc) I think the answer is definitely yes.
One thing that should be setting off alarm bells now is how often these scandals in the last couple of years have involved people who are in very high-level administrative positions at these institutions. Not only because of the values that might be instilled downward in the future, but also what it says about what has been valued already to reach those positions.
I have seen and heard stuff like this routinely that never makes the press. Not everyone in academics is corrupt, but the rot is prevalent enough that it's pretty systemic at this point and affects everyone. I think sometimes people don't even realize what they're suggesting sometimes, it's so common.
I have a theory that as some indicator of success deviates from a normal tail, there's more likely to be corruption or luck involved. The incentives just don't work the other way. But I'm biased based on my experiences, which reflect one domain of modern society.
> or maybe it just appears that way because these are media reported
When thinking about it more, I think that is also highly likely. It many of these cases the most "famous" author is the last one on the paper, but is the first to be highlighted in the media. That is, oftentimes the work was just done in their labs but they did little more than review. But there is such pressure for those toiling in the labs to make a "big" splash that it's not hard to think that some small number of them would be willing to cheat. This line from the original blog post (https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-...) reporting on the findings is telling:
> “You should reach out to Dr. Hidde Ploegh- the first author, Dr. Boaz Tirosh was in his laboratory.”
> Well Laurie, it’s your paper, if you care about it being correct, you could very well reach out yourself!
While I agree that Laurie Glimcher should be very concerned about any research misconduct done under her authorship, I think it's premature to get out the pitchforks when there are potentially many levels of indirection here.
For a sector/area/industry that deals with "hard facts" and Science, it's "surprising" how much of these groups and institutions run on prestige, greed and ego.
We are talking about institutions run by these people who have annual budgets of BILLIONS of dollars, sometimes I feel most people view these schools and institutions like just one step above their local high-school, nothing is further from the truth.
I can think of three former colleagues that have had very successful careers and that are also gifted liars (one stands out as also being a pathological liar.) None of them are ever going to be reported in the media.
>wonder if the same attributes that puts people at their top of their fields is the same atribute that makes them more willing to sacrifice their integrity for prestige
I have a HLS lawyerbro that absolutely attests to this theory. "You hear that? That's `pride` fuckin'with'ya."
This is an incredible post, thanks for the link! The researches are quite literally photoshopping study images! How is this even legal? Plain vanilla fraud.
It's confusing because some of the incidents had image manipulation, but apparently no evidence of deceit. Some others involved data collected at labs not belonging to the four authors accused. But there are six papers being retracted, but no real details in that article on who did what and what exactly happened there.
“No evidence of deceit” but the data show no effect while you accidentally published an image from some supposedly “early/exploratory” analysis that does show an effect.
What would be the evidence of deceit you’d expect to find here? A video of a monologue by the evil villain disclosing their intention to deceive readers because they believe no one will reproduce their analysis before they get their promotion?
I've been thinking about how with the rise of LLMs, we're going to uncover A LOT of "bad studies" over the next decade. Could be some sort of mass reckoning. Probably better to admit it all now than be uncovered in 5 years.
how would LLMs help with uncovering "bad studies"? I don't think LLMs are yet sophisticated enough to figure out potential plagiarism or Adobe Photoshop copy-and-paste (as mentioned in the article above).
Well you can train AIs to uncover image fraud and detect manipulation that is well known (imagetwin does this).
Presumably the same can be done for tabular data and genomic or "omics" data. At the very least statistical techniques can be used. I imagine high throughput imaging modalities will be the main target.
That being said the only way the -omics data will have utility is via AI models
which are trained on some task... which present their own problems..
> For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Agreed that de-anonymizing will become trivial. This will be a problem not only for bad actors in research, journalism, creative writing, etc., but for internet commenters who believed they'd done due diligence to remain anonymous, and even for research participants who'd expected anonymity when signing their consent forms. We're rushing headlong into even stranger days!
I would prioritize looking for financial and corporate fraud. It would have a much bigger impact on society than looking for any problems with academic studies. If we can take down those people and bar them from ever having anything to do with finance in the future, I think that would have an important impact on the ethics and behavior of the next generation.
It seems to me that taking down fraudulent academic researchers and barring them from ever having anything to do with research in the future would also have a significant impact on the ethics and behavior of the next generation. If technology is lowering the barriers to fraud detection, why should it be applied to one sector over another?
Why is it that with elites it's always "we lack incontrovertible evidence of bad behavior, so we can't take substantial disciplinary action", but never "we lack an incontrovertible evidence of good behavior, so we can't give an elite position and massive pay for another year"? Meanwhile, regular common folks can be executed by police by transient circumstantial whims.
Cheating in academia is the perfect crime. Cheaters conducting studies on cheating. If you don’t know a if system is consistent and you ask it to determine if it’s consistent. Brilliant!
Imagine this is the selector, the great filter, of who gets to thrive in a field. One department head who publish faked/made-up papers, poisons the whole surrounding environment, killing science in his environment for 10 years. Now imagine the whole field poisoned, where it takes some outlying independent research institute, detached from the field to bring up evidence to bring the cartel down. Science should have more of these "outside" field quality check stations, that bring down fraudsters. No original research there, just reproduction of experiments central to theories and vital to the name of those leading the field.
A libertarian such as yourself should be comfortable with people running an academic fraud detection business, paying for access to papers, and accepting payment for their investigations. Recent events at Harvard show that plenty of interested parties are willing to pay to prove that their opponents in some arena are cheating. Also MrBeast and the rest of YouTube shows that otherwise unprofitable activities can be profitable when presented in an entertaining way for ad views.
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One thing that should be setting off alarm bells now is how often these scandals in the last couple of years have involved people who are in very high-level administrative positions at these institutions. Not only because of the values that might be instilled downward in the future, but also what it says about what has been valued already to reach those positions.
I have seen and heard stuff like this routinely that never makes the press. Not everyone in academics is corrupt, but the rot is prevalent enough that it's pretty systemic at this point and affects everyone. I think sometimes people don't even realize what they're suggesting sometimes, it's so common.
I have a theory that as some indicator of success deviates from a normal tail, there's more likely to be corruption or luck involved. The incentives just don't work the other way. But I'm biased based on my experiences, which reflect one domain of modern society.
When thinking about it more, I think that is also highly likely. It many of these cases the most "famous" author is the last one on the paper, but is the first to be highlighted in the media. That is, oftentimes the work was just done in their labs but they did little more than review. But there is such pressure for those toiling in the labs to make a "big" splash that it's not hard to think that some small number of them would be willing to cheat. This line from the original blog post (https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-...) reporting on the findings is telling:
> “You should reach out to Dr. Hidde Ploegh- the first author, Dr. Boaz Tirosh was in his laboratory.”
> Well Laurie, it’s your paper, if you care about it being correct, you could very well reach out yourself!
While I agree that Laurie Glimcher should be very concerned about any research misconduct done under her authorship, I think it's premature to get out the pitchforks when there are potentially many levels of indirection here.
For a sector/area/industry that deals with "hard facts" and Science, it's "surprising" how much of these groups and institutions run on prestige, greed and ego.
We are talking about institutions run by these people who have annual budgets of BILLIONS of dollars, sometimes I feel most people view these schools and institutions like just one step above their local high-school, nothing is further from the truth.
Or to put it differently, the unquenched desires of acquisition, rivalry, vanity, and power lead people to do things they oughtn't
I have a HLS lawyerbro that absolutely attests to this theory. "You hear that? That's `pride` fuckin'with'ya."
What would be the evidence of deceit you’d expect to find here? A video of a monologue by the evil villain disclosing their intention to deceive readers because they believe no one will reproduce their analysis before they get their promotion?
Presumably the same can be done for tabular data and genomic or "omics" data. At the very least statistical techniques can be used. I imagine high throughput imaging modalities will be the main target.
That being said the only way the -omics data will have utility is via AI models which are trained on some task... which present their own problems..
Agreed that de-anonymizing will become trivial. This will be a problem not only for bad actors in research, journalism, creative writing, etc., but for internet commenters who believed they'd done due diligence to remain anonymous, and even for research participants who'd expected anonymity when signing their consent forms. We're rushing headlong into even stranger days!
Deleted Comment
The higher the stakes, the lower the standards.
https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-...