http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5446438.html

This sounds like it's going to do some damage. Some of the minor rules and taking credit for someone elses work may not affect the actual science, but everyone will not think that.

Not being a scientist, but having a technical background, I can overlook some of the technicalities of the answers (maybe the questions were asked in a leading way - therefore part of the 1/3 #-o ). I only worry about the bad apples, and the pressure from a sponsor.

Maybe this would be a good one for a poll

The cases of misconduct seem to be especially frequent in medical research.
In long-term (decades) it might not affect science, however it might be harmful in the short-term.


I would be especially worried about pressures from sponsors.
They are never good for research, because they limit freedom of research and can heavily bias the result.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

That would be because a large amount of medical research now days is either directly sponsored by a pharmacuetical/device maker, or in the case of NIH studies, some of the participating researchers have consulting relationships with pharmacuetical/device makers.

Conflicts of interest of rife and some percentage (probably quite small) of people aren't as ethical as they should be. It's a sticky problem that there are no good answers to.

In this Washington Post version of the story:

So that the ones who feel the system is unfair are more likely to cheat means that the system is unfair and needs changing? I'm not sure I follow.

If we poll people and find thieves and robbers are more likely to believe that society is unfair, then the rules need to change? Not the thieves and robbers?

I eagerly await the publishing of the details, to see if they explain that argument.

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

Let me point out "peer review for grants and advancement": money and career.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

The organization conducting the study is definately leaned towards health care & medical research. Conflicts of interest due to funding by pharmaceutical companies has been a concern for years. I believe some respectable medical journals were getting so concerned that they now require complete disclosure of the authors' sources of funding. If medical researchers made up a significant portion of the people polled for the study I could definately see where there would be a number of them would have conducted themselves improperly at one time or another.

But I suspect had the poll been limited to physicists and astronomers the rate of 'misconduct' would be a lot less.

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What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.

I found this study very disturbing and frankly a little hard to believe. And yes I am a scientist (though very far from medical research), and no I have not cheated. I find the one-third number incredible. My amazement doesn't it make it not-true, but I would like to know more details than I read in the newspaper.

If this is true, even just for medical research, I think this is a major embarrassment for science. It is just the kind of thing that the people that want to discredit science (like our woo-woo friends) will love to latch on to.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

This, posted in BABBling by John Kierein, looks a bit more accurate.

Here are some more details (hope I'm not pushing the copyright limit
So I'm guessing the 33% number comes from summing the various indiscretions. I'm not sure I would class some of these as "cheating" (but again, I'm one of those "scientists"). Improper relationships might be amoral, but it doesn't impact the research. The same might be said for protecting human subjects (not a concern in solid state chemistry).

The stuff about changing the design may be a little grey - I'll explain from personal examples. I have published a bunch of papers while involved in industrial research. Often these papers contain the truth and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. We often leave out finding that we are trying to keep from our competitors. I don't consider that cheating, but I'm curious if others do.

Martinson is the principal author of the study. This would seem to agree with several statements that this was mostly (?) medical research.

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Summing the various percentages wouldn't work... Chances are that scientists in one group of results would be likely to be in another group as well

On a less serious note does this include the people who did the research for this paper?

](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

In order to protect sensitive material or trade secrets, I would expect industries not to disclose every little detail.
You might not publish every result, but what you publish should be repeatable by other people.
A paper is supposed to give enough information to enable other researchers to test your results.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Exactly: from the article...
So that's answering some of my questions like:
- What's the sample size? (3247)
- What kind of scientists? (Seems like healthcare only. What about other fields?)
- How were the questions phrased? (??)
- What percentage responded? (set to how many thousand - ~3k=100%, ~100k=3%)