Fraud, cheating and lies in research show how science (in most cases) corrects itself
The voice of the skeptic/Michael Shermer
At the degree awarding ceremony at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1974, the Nobel laureate in physics, Richard P. Feynman, marveled at defining scientific integrity: "The first principle is that you must not deceive yourself, and you are the easiest person to deceive... after you have not deceived yourself, it is easier not to deceive other scientists. After that, all you have to do is be honest in the conventional sense of the word.”
Unfortunately, Feynman's colleague at Caltech College, David Goodstein, wrote in his new book "On Facts and Frauds: Moral Stories from the Frontiers of Science"* that there are scientists who try to deceive their colleagues, and that if you believe that everyone is honest in the accepted sense of the word, the chances of you being deceived by others increase Deliberate fraud. Nature may be cunning, but it does not lie on purpose. Humans do. Goodstein strives to understand why some scientists lie. He begins by appealing to accepted myths in science such as: "A scientist should not engage in scientific research for reasons of personal benefit, promotion or other reward." "Scientists must always be objective and unbiased when collecting data." "Scientists should not stick to an idea dogmatically or exaggerate recommendations to promote it." "Scientists must not be influenced in their judgment by those in power." All these proverbs, and many others, simply do not reflect how science works in reality.
If we know that scientists are strongly influenced by the driving force of status and reward, that scientists are no more objective than professionals in other fields, that they can defend an idea with a devotion that is no less than that of ideologues, and that they may deviate from the right path under the influence of authority, we can understand, in Godstein's words, that "the introduction Falsification when he himself into the body of science is only in rare cases, if at all, the aim of the fraudsters. They almost always believe that what they add to the scientific evidence is the truth." And Goldstein should know this because the scope of his position as vice president of Caltech is to investigate suspicions of scientific misconduct. In his investigations, Goodstein found three risk factors that are almost always found in cases of cheating in science. The cheaters, he writes, “1. were subject to career pressure; 2. knew, or thought they knew, what the solution to the problem they were investigating would be if they bothered and did all the work properly; and 3. Worked in areas of research where they did not expect that it would be possible to accurately repeat and verify individual experiments."
To discover a fraudulent act, one must first define it. And so Godstein does: "Inappropriate research behavior is defined as forgery, falsification or theft during the conduct of research or when conducting a review of it or when reporting its results." Then there must be a "significant deviation from the work procedures accepted in the scientific community." Also, the act of fraud must "be carried out with the first intention or knowingly or with contemptuous disregard of the accepted procedures," and finally, as in any court, the fraud must be proven through numerous testimonies.
Clear cases of fraud include the twin studies of British psychologist Cyril L. Burt (who faked so many sets of twins that he had to invent twin researchers), the experiments of cancer researcher William Summerlin of the Sloan-Kettering Institute who allegedly inserted healthy black skin grafts into white mice (and was caught blackening them with a black marker), physicist Victor Nimov's claim to have discovered element 118 (which others predicted, so he falsified data that showed its existence in an experiment) and, of course, the famous Feltdown Man forgery (which turned out to be an orangutan jaw painted to look ancient). Other cases are not so clear. The "discovery" of cold fusion by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons was probably, according to Goodstein's conclusion, a case of scientists "convincing themselves that they had knowledge that actually did not exist." Such self-deception is distinctly different from deliberate deception.
Well, it is true that there are sinful scientists. Given the fierce nature of the competition for research funding and the maddening drudgery required to achieve scientific status, it's a wonder fraud isn't more common. And the reason it is so rare (compared to, say, politics) is that science is designed to expose fraud (your own and others') through peer collaboration, mentoring of research students, peer control, validation through experiment, and repetition of experiments. The history of science shows us that although the general atmosphere of openness and honesty is idealized to the point of legend, it nevertheless exists and in the long run pulls out the weeds and exposes cheaters and frauds.
___
* David Goodstein, On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science (Princeton University Press, 2010).
Michael Shermer is the publisher of the Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com) and the author of the book The Mind of the Market.
More on the subject on the science website
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Scientists, fakers and false prophets - science fiction in the laboratory
42 תגובות
Emanuel,
Note: neutrons, neutrons and neutrons. The fusion process is accompanied by the emission of neutrons if they were not measured in the experiment!
I would love to hear about a cold fusion experiment where neutrons were measured.
Everything else is, as I said, a quirk, whether it is chemists or not is a debate that has nothing to do with science or maybe
Only for sociology. Give me an example of an experiment in which neutrons were measured. The beauty of nuclear processes is that they do not depend on the details, the nucleus is not interested in how the fusion is created, only that it is created. Instead of giving me names, give me relevant information.
sympathetic
You decided to react pointlessly this time.
You stated that only clueless chemists bother with this and I showed you that is simply not true.
Do you want links to information about the successful experiments of the Japanese nuclear physicist Irta, winner of the Emperor's Prize?
Or the Indian nuclear pioneer?
Or of the American Military Science Institute?
I will bring you if you are interested.
The Nobel laureate emphasizes that there is tritium that certainly does not come from the various places
This is an interview from 91
What fake scientist are you talking about?
Who is shelling? it's a lie -.
Are you someone who tends to lie?
You have more comments than me here
And I answered the season here
https://www.hayadan.org.il/gabi-avital-fired-0510102/#comment-278219
Emanuel,
The question of how many of those involved in cold fusion have a background in chemistry has no scientific significance, only sociological. The important scientific fact is that none of the cold fusion experiments produced enough neutrons! You can't argue with facts.
As I said, all the experiments claiming cold fusion are based on an energy balance (which is not an indication
for fusion) or nuclear products that can come from different places are not a sure indication of fusion.
The quote by Julian Schweniger, a widely respected physicist (although not a nuclear physicist) refers to
For an investigation into the falsification of the results of a certain experiment in which high amounts of tritium were discovered. the scientist who performed
The experiment was accused of forgery and the subject was investigated by the university to which he belongs. As mentioned, not proving the forgery claim is not proof of cold fusion.
You decided to bombard and answer your comment 9 precisely in the least relevant place, so here is a link:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/gabi-avital-fired-0510102/#comment-278165
Is a Nobel laureate in physics competent enough to express an opinion on the subject of cold fusion experiments?
Julian Schwinger 1965 Nobel Laureate in Physics
I find it both amusing and tragic that the members of a panel,
investigating the charge of fraud in tritium production by cold fusion,
dismissed the charge as "unlikely" and "much less probable than that."
of inadvertent contamination or other unexplained factors in the
measurement.” That the "unexplained factors" might be the reality of
cold fusion was not admitted. Why? Because "critics questioned the results, saying that the tritium was not accompanied by other fusion byproducts. . . .” It is the old story. If a significant flux of neutrons is not observed, there cannot be any tritium, even though one finds tritium with a signature that differentiates it both from external and internal contamination.
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SchwingerJcoldfusiona.pdf
Many thanks to Michael (and others) for the honesty, objectivity, and fairness. Often your comments help me, as a reader, to clarify articles and even expand beyond the subject of the news.
Year:
I am not familiar enough with Chomsky's theory.
On the other hand, it seems to me that you completely ignore the fact that our minds are machines that were made in the same way and that it is reasonable for you to do things in a similar way.
"Things" also include languages.
Why does evolution converge where it converges? Because the result is more suitable for our minds.
The mixing of languages affects the vocabulary. I don't think you can point to a mix of syntaxes.
Error named:
There must be zero who didn't understand.
Machel, (19)
Most of the common features of languages come from two reasons: 1. Every language is created by mixing features of other languages, there are no exceptions.
2. Convergent evolution.
Recently, a review was published in Science on a book that discusses the evolution of language, according to the Chomsky school of thought. The visitor was not polite at all. He called the Chomskyan approach to language research "dead animals". (24.9.2010 329).
To one who researched and understood
You're right!!!
what a wonder
If he created you, I too would seek an escape route,
Do everyone a favor and don't mix his ignorant opinions into the discussion.
sympathetic
Are all those who claim cold fusion chemists?
What are you talking about?
In 2008 renowned physicist Prof. Yoshiaki Irta and his team from Osaka University conducted a successful public demonstration of cold fusion
One of the pioneers of the Indian atom, the physicist Prof. Mahadva Srinivasan - also succeeded
Even a scientific institute of the US military
Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center
Declares success in 2007
And there are many more
Everything the scientists are looking for is nothing more than an escape route from the truth that there is a creator for the world...
Emanuel,
I'm sorry to disappoint you, the water you drink also has tritium (don't be alarmed by a negligible amount). Tritium is not an indication of a nuclear reaction! In the cold fusion experiment, according to Pons and Fleishman's assessment of the excess energy, the pair of scientists should have died as a result of the radiation (gammas and neutrons in particular). In all experiments of cold fusion you do not see any protection against neutrons or gammas and therefore it is not nuclear fusion but an incomprehensible chemical process. It is possible that in the coil of Fleischmann and Pons there was a penny of chemical energy that was released and it is possible that they did not know how to calculate the energy balance correctly (it is a complex calculation). All those who argue for cold fusion are chemists who do not understand what nuclear energy is. Again anyone who affirms cold fusion relies on the energy balance which can easily be misleading. Nuclear physics clearly demonstrates that the process is (unfortunately) impossible.
Read my comment again
Tritium particles have been found in experiments around the world.
And also at MIT in the USA - Dr. Eugene Malov even resigned in protest of the concealment and distortion of the experimental findings
which confirmed that there was indeed cold fusion
Emanuel,
I recommend you the book "Bad Science: the short life and weird times of cold fusion"
By: Gary Taubes
There the reasons for Pons and Fleishman's mistake are explained:
1. They came from the field of chemistry and had no physical knowledge of fusion.
2. They didn't talk about their findings with other scientists for fear that they would lie about their idea.
3. They thought that another Guns scientist had reached similar results.
The smoking gun of cold fusion is the emission of neutrons in the process. No one has yet been able to identify the emitted neutrons in all the cases in which it is claimed that they succeeded in achieving cold fusion. By the way, there is also a company in Israel (in Omer if I'm not mistaken) that went on TV announcing that it had achieved cold fusion.
On the subject of cold fusion, it is easy to be fooled by the energy balance, as Pons and Fleishman did. Many researchers think that they get more energy from the system than they put into it electrically. In practice, this is an incorrect balance. Researchers who are not physicists rely only on the energy balance to claim that they have achieved cold fusion and do not bother to look for neutrons and this is the source of the error.
sympathetic
The findings of Pons and Fleishman are real, and have been reproduced in laboratories around the world (not just heating but finding tritium in water)
The cheating did not come from their side.
Watch the investigation in response 1
Know the evidence and testimonies
And you will also understand why they tried to bury the authentic revelation.
An example of a scientist who managed to mislead the scientific community for a long time is Hendrik Schoen, who published dozens of articles in Science and Nature until his act of fraud was discovered. Sean is considered to have a golden touch, everything he touches succeeds. Examples of this: the first organic laser, the smallest transistor, in 2001 his name appeared on an article published every eight days. Some saw him as a successor to Einstein. Only one fact clouded it, no one was able to reproduce his results. Many PhD students and post-docs were almost fired from their jobs later, trying unsuccessfully to reproduce Sean's results. Finally the act of fraud was exposed, when an inspector of one of Sean's works noticed that the noise in two graphs in different works was too similar. He raised his tongue about it because he thought he was innocently wrong and from there the matter deteriorated. Sean as well as Pons and Fleishman demonstrate why it is so difficult to cheat in science. The motivation to cheat is in considered fields that many people are interested in and therefore there will also be many people who will check the results of the work in question and there is a high chance of discovering fraud.
The interesting question that has already been asked by one of the respondents in a different way, is whether scientists are more honest than the general public or is it simply easier to expose their scams and therefore they stand by development and avoid cheating?
The easiest thing for a scientist, as claimed in the article, is to deceive himself. The classic example of this is the example of cold fusion where the scientists Pons and Fleishman convened a press committee and announced that they had achieved cold fusion in the laboratory. The reason that Ponce and Fleishman went to the press with the announcement before it had passed the usual vetting of other scientists to receive (or not) a scientific stamp for publication is that the pair of scientists were sure that another researcher named Guns was going to publish the same result before them. This is a classic case of following untested results: the researchers came from the field of chemistry and not from the field of physics and were not familiar with the subject of fusion. They were sure of their result and it would have changed the face of the world had it been true and therefore their fear that their discovery would be taken away from them. These reasons caused scientists not to submit their results as is customary in the scientific method for review and the result is known to everyone.
And regarding sinful scientists, the chief scientist of the Ministry of Education was fired according to YNET.
Year:
Nevertheless - there are many rules that all languages obey and in fact the family of syntactic structures is much smaller than the family of languages.
This can imply a certain type of structured syntax.
Also the ability to create and learn language, which is a physiological ability of the human mind, surely dictates something in relation to the structure of language.
Therefore - even though I think Noam Chomsky exaggerates his claims - it is not that there is nothing in them.
Emmanuel C:
Not true.
The religion from the beginning is built on a tract of lies and the demand for honesty is therefore only from the language and to the outside.
In addition, religion places a lot of unnecessary and impossible restrictions on a person, which means that people who could act in a secular environment openly and give their homosexuality a legitimate expression are pushed in the religious environment to act secretly and exercise their tendencies on minors who are subject to them.
The intuitive touch collides with reality
Catholic priests are also required to have sexual "honesty" (restraint) in their Sunday sermons
What is happening outside - ask the children
Machel,
I didn't do any research either, my intuition says that scientists are similar to all people.
Regarding the language, if it is about the ability to learn, to acquire a language, there is no debate.
I don't know if you are familiar with Chomsky's claims. His main claim is that syntax is innate, that the sentences a person says are abstractly processed in the brain independently of words. There is a book in Hebrew by Professor Grodzinski "Psychology and Language", which explains the theory and says that there is a syntactic processor in the brain that "operates autonomously, when no semantic consideration is able to interfere with its work. He presents semantics with all the possible syntactic analyzes and it chooses the one that suits it" (p. 73). This is the approach of Chomsky and his school. What is quoted here, apart from the fact that it contains an internal contradiction, cannot be, and it is clear that there is no evidence for this approach.
By the way, go to my blog that I uploaded today, there is a link to a new PhD that presents a general evolutionary theory in saltational jumps and also adapts his theory of evolution to Chomsky's approach.
Year:
Unlike you - I have never conducted a study on the honesty of scientists in life outside of science. My intuition says that the demand for honesty in scientific work must affect the behavior in everyday life, but with me, as mentioned, it is only intuition, and not knowledge derived from objective statistical research like you do.
Language is indeed an innate thing. That is - not the language - but the linguistic ability.
Those who want to understand this are invited to read this article:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/birth-of-language-1110084/
And here: An example of religious brainwashing
Rabbi Korshenbaum says: It is better to live like a cat that does not think and does not ask questions and not to be exposed to information because information may make you think of heresy
It seems to me that what is more problematic in science than scams are wrong opinions that are introduced not as a scam but by the self-conviction of the prestigious scientist and scholar, which are very difficult to eliminate. The classic case is Aristotle, but even in the twentieth century, with all the cross-criticism, such an opinion was introduced: Noam Chomsky managed to convince the best researchers in linguistics and psychology, and to a certain extent in biology, that language is innate, without bringing even a shred of evidence. Those who don't believe me are welcome to read his books translated into Hebrew "Speech and Spirit" and "Speech and Questions on Knowledge".
subjective:
Your words are a typical lie and it is easy to see.
1. Most ultra-Orthodox do not take psychometric tests. They are ensconced in the tent of vanity. Only virtuous individuals can rise above the religious brainwashing and some of these are going to take a psychometric test. In other words - the very act of going to the exam shows excellence, so it is clear that those who have already passed among the ultra-Orthodox are above average. And in other words (intended for people like you) the average obtained among the ultra-Orthodox examinees is not the average of you ultra-Orthodox but only of the excellent ones, while for those who are not ultra-Orthodox - because everyone understands the importance of studies - the average is everyone's average.
2. The psychometric tests are - by definition - tests designed to neutralize the effect of school education and matriculation grades (otherwise they would be satisfied with these grades). This means that the ultra-Orthodox education system has nothing and nothing to do with the achievements of its students in the psychometric exams. It was not for nothing that they wrote that we built a special course for these students. Preparing the students for the psychometric exams is an achievement of this course and not of the orthodox training system that these students dared to escape from its clutches.
"And the crazy hard work to achieve science status"
I know quite a few people in the sciences for whom the last thing that can be said is the aforementioned sentence. In fact, they work in the most convenient way and enjoy many economic and pleasant benefits...
R.H.
I assume that scientists do not often lie in science itself, because of the detection mechanisms of scams, but if we examine them in the social areas you mentioned, it is doubtful whether they will be preferred by the entire population.
Please note:
"The ultra-orthodox lead in psychometric scores"
Close to 60% pass the median compared to 50% in the general population and about 25% of all Haredi female students pass the 600 mark.
For several years now, Mevhar - the Center for Academic Studies in Bnei Brak - in collaboration with EZ Way have been holding customized psychometric courses for the ultra-Orthodox sector with great success. The data proves that the average grades of classes from the ultra-orthodox sector do not fall below the general sector and even surpass it by dozens of counters with persistence and diligence.
Attorney Ehud Zeltner, CEO of EZ Way, says that close to 60% pass the median compared to 50% in the general population and about 25% of all ultra-Orthodox female students pass the score of 600. These figures are particularly impressive in light of the percentage of the population that comes from the ultra-Orthodox community, in opening conditions far inferior to the general population.
These data prove that any attempt to harm ultra-Orthodox education in the current form of Israel Saba's legacy, as the core program designed to introduce content into the world of yeshivas and Torah Talmud, were only intended to tease and not promote the level of studies of ultra-Orthodox education.
If it's the top of the ladder - I'm afraid to think what's at the bottom of the ladder
Look what happened if global warming lies
Finally it is officially published:
See the new report of the British Royal Society
The Royal Society now also agrees with the GWPF that the warming trend of
the 1980s and 90s have come to a halt in the last 10 years.
There is currently insufficient understanding of the enhanced melting and retreat of the ice sheets on Greenland and West Antarctica to predict exactly how much the rate of sea level rise will increase above that observed in the past century
for a given temperature increase.
Similarly, the possibility of large changes in the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean cannot be assessed with confidence. The latter limits the ability to predict with confidence what changes in climate will occur in Western Europe.
You can download the report from the website of
Royal Society
Yanon, Itzik, Subjective Quacks:
Maybe instead of giving grades and titles to the site and the people, give an example that shows you are right?
It is quite clear why you prefer baseless slander.
R.H
According to you, a little dishonesty is fine. Just an accounting matter.
It can be assumed that R.H. is an accountant.
So ok I agree this site is only somewhat objective.
Yanon and the "subjective" gentleman,
It's true, scientists are also human beings, but if you compare sectors and professions in the economy, I'm sure you'll find science and scientists at the top of the scale of honesty, morals and ethics. And the level of corruption, criminality or immorality in this sector is much lower than that of, for example, the legal or rabbinic system or any other.
Michal Rothschild
Wow, you are so objective and this site is so unbiased
You just lack the pretzel above your head
Yanon is right
Yanon:
You are just slandering.
I don't think there is even one article on the scientist's website that represents the attitude you accuse him of.
"A scientist must not engage in scientific research for reasons of personal benefit, promotion or other reward." "Scientists must always be objective and unbiased when collecting data." "Scientists should not stick to an idea dogmatically or exaggerate recommendations to promote it." "Scientists must not be influenced in their judgment by those in power." All these proverbs, and many others, simply do not reflect how science works in reality.
A happy coincidence for me exactly two weeks ago I decided I was tired of the articles in the science,
Precisely for these reasons, now I just went browsing and I'm glad I came across the sane side.
I also wondered why no one does an investigation on scientific findings that have been inflated and distorted just a little
To strengthen the hypothesis, it is only human to do it, but scientists are sometimes heard
as close as God
All examples are representative except for the cold fusion discovery by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons.
This was revealed in detail in the investigation named
Heavy Watergate
http://tinyurl.com/238sxv9