Sir

Your News story “One in three scientists confesses to having sinned” (Nature 435, 718–719; 200510.1038/435718b) identifies increasing pressure on scientists to publish papers and win grants as the main cause of misbehaviour. As a third-year graduate student, I think that the roles of the education and punishment systems may have been overlooked.

First, how many US graduate schools offer a compulsory ‘responsible conduct of research’ course? Young scientists, especially graduate students and postdocs, could easily misbehave because they lack education on the detrimental effects of misconduct.

Second, the low cost and risk associated with one misbehaviour may foster more misbehaviour. Graduate students and postdocs are usually the ones blamed when misconduct is revealed, while the professors tend to keep their positions and retain their funding.

If the benefits of misbehaving outweigh the possibility of being punished, academic misbehaviour is probably inevitable.