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Published online 18 June 2008 | Nature 453, 969 (2008) | doi:10.1038/453969d
News in Brief
Researcher suspended for falsifying data
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Who is the corresponding author on these papers? What co-responsibility that "principle investigator" should take? How could senior researchers be so easily cheated by the junior researchers and for so long time? What are the expertise of those expert peer reviewers? Why would it almost always take a convinction of misconduct for journals to then retract some already known flawed papers?----Shi V. Liu (SVL@logibio.com; http://im1.biz)
A major part of misconduct in research can be attributed to the fact that researchers are blinded by their faith in their hypothesis and set out to prove it while ignoring results that are contrary to their hypothesis. The reason one does research is to test a hypothesis and not to prove it, if results are against the hypothesis they need to change their hypothesis accordingly instead of their results. In many cases the Principal Investigators are happy as long as the junior researcher finds something that fits their hypothesis and tend to pressure them to "see" what they believe in. So, I think the PI is equally to blame as he/she is reponsible for overseeing what people in the lab are doing and guiding them accordingly.
Most of the researchers see what they want to see, rather than what is actually there. Many times they just cherry pick those data that suit their hypothesis and discard other data. They just tell a part of the story that suit them, rather than the whole story. It’s hard to believe that only the postdoc was involved in such cases of cheating for such a long time and in so many high profile publications. Jealously and professional rivalry sometimes prevent good articles with genuine data to publish while such fraud articles are being published. What is the responsibility of the reviewers in such known cases of fraud publications? Corresponding author(s) of all those articles should accept responsibilities as well. Senior faculties are involved in too many “other� activities and have almost “no time� for their own research activities. They bite more than they can chew.
I am glad universities are taking action, and more needs to be done. But like the other commenters said, what about the corresponding author? After I graduated, my advisor took my dissertation, copied paragraphs from it "almost" verbatim, and put it into a paper as sole author. I say "almost," because in his new paper, he added data from another study but made it seem like both data sets were collected at the same time. He also changed a few words referring to previous studies, make his data seem more important than it was. When I complained to the journal, they said "too bad, your advisor claims he phrased most of your dissertation." When I went to the university, they said they stay out of how data is presented. However, because my text had been copied and was copyrighted, they made the journal remove all of my paragraphs from the final published paper. The journal, however, refuses to take down the draft version of the paper unless the university retracts it (which they won't), even though the science theories are misquoted and it was an "almost" carbon copy of my work. The plagiary magazine published my story - you can read it at http://www.plagiary.org/responses.htm
The point is to look at WHY she did that instead of putting efforts to make her feel more or less guilty. Scientific research gradually has progressed into an unfortunate fight for power, fame and authortiy. And as we all know there is no end to the greed of Fame and power. This leads the researchers to get down to such a level of dis-honesty that they will do any manipulations including plagiarism to publish papers in reputed journals in order to get into this mad race for getting into news. Majority of Scientific research is getting reduced to politics of contacts and publishing papers instead of aligning with the Nature and Biology in order to solve mysteries. I would suggest its fruitful if this issue will be looked at from this perspective rather than just focussing on her alone.
Apparently data falsification isn't as rare as we'd all like to think. The Scientist reports that the Journal of Cell Biology has been screening images from all accepted manuscripts since 2002. Just over 1% of accepted articles contain images which appeared to be deliberately manipulated. See http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54663/
The ache for publications is one of the reasons why these amateur researchers are heading towards data manipulation. Moreover, a data that is able to reciprocate a previously published report is more appreciable in most of the labs. I fail to understand why the contradictory results are not accepted at ease. Well, it is good that the matter was taken into consideration and it will be a warning for those who have made research just a publication industry.
There are many aspects of such corrupt activities in science these days. Many high profile faculties do not hesitate to sacrifice some junior staff, postdocs and graduate students for the misconduct they imposed on them. For personal rivalry with another faculty and jealousy some high profile faculties do not allow the concerned postdoc/grad student to communicate their own work. Once they leave his/her lab, then they publish that work or part of that work in modified form, with other data but without even acknowledging the original worker. On top of that only those people critically read a paper that his/her own work is related. Almost all the reviewers generally are from the same field and known to each other. Sometimes they originate from the same lab and act as a close nit group. These faculties can publish just anything they want, as some of his/her ex-colleague or supervisor will review the manuscripts. It’s almost impossible to oppose such practice as a member of such groups. Moreover any such act to oppose such corrupt practice is just like committing suicide as far one’s own research career is concerned. That’s why many postdocs and grad students do not oppose such practices and carry on with their lives and careers. While some of those grad students and postdocs accept that as a way of life in research career and do not hesitate to continue that practice once they become a faculty themselves. The cycle goes on.
Everybody who takes the credit of publication should also take the responsibilities and consequences. The advisers are definitely responsible for their trainees' misconduct in the lab. That being said, scientific journals can do something to help. For example, journals can ban the manuscripts from the labs with problem for a certain period.
The case of Kristin Roovers does not astound me. While, surely most of us scientists are honest (as our aim is to look for the truth), scientists are human too. More often the society expects much from scientists and looks upon scientists as some sort of Super-Human-Beings, which surely we are not. There can be numerous reasons as to why a person fudged data. For example, it may reflect a lack of character, psychological problems, such as delusions, etc. Or even academic pressure to produce data rapidly. Thus before penalizing a scientist it is imperative that an objective investigation be undertaken as to the cause of this improper behaviour of the concerned person. If it is discovered that the individual lacks character, surely such an person has no place in science. Finally, one can conclude that by falsifying data an individual is not only harming humanity but also harming themselves. Upinder Fotadar, D.Sc Research Scientist Basic Sciences Division New York University 345 East, 24th Street New York, NY 10010 Phone: 212-998-9578 E-mail: uf4@nyu.edu
Plagiarism is difficult to eradicate, as Art Smith's story reveals. More so once an author attains "celebrity" status. There is evidence that Einstein was a plagiariser. But to criticise Einstein in the scientific community would be like critising God himself. There is the evidence of Abram Fedorovich Joffe that the true author of what is now known as the "Special" Theory of relativity was his wife Mileva Maric. There is other circumstantial evidence that this may have been true. Einstein carefully cultivated celebrities and once adopted by Planck, after the publishing of the Theory of Relativity he became untouchable.
You should always believe in what you observe from your results, and never observe what you believe from your results.
Help needed to fight research misconduct I worked in one of the most prestigious institutes in Boston and the world. In the work, I could not be able to recapitulate and develop a major story in the polycystic kidney disease field. Later I found out that some of the important data that were published and used by the laboratory to apply for NIH（National Institutes of Health）grants were falsified and fabricated. Astoundingly, my findings also indicated that several top laboratories in the field are probably involving in fabrication and/or falsification of scientific data. I presented the evidences and made complaints to the principle investigator of the laboratory and later the officials in the institute. However, I was retaliated against for my whistle blowing and was asked to leave my position. I have made research misconduct allegation and retaliation allegation in Office of Research Integrity in US Department of Health and Human Services. Unfortunately, ORI only asked the institute set up self-investigation panels for both issues. After my complaining, the institute egregiously engaged in the retaliation and threatening, attempting to intimidate me. After an extremely unfair investigation, the institute terminated my position before the investigation to research misconduct actually started, releasing a clear signal to the people of research misconduct that the institute is helping them cover up their wrongdoings. If the research misconduct is covered up, millions dollars of taxpayers' money could be in danger of being wasted, the public health could be in danger of unprotected, and the truth might be buried by the lies. Therefore, I am seeking for urgent assistance from anyone who will be able to give me a hand on this matter. Your kind assistance and/or information will be highly appreciated by all honest and hard-working scientists. If you are interested in knowing the specific story, please contact me at lincbacon@yahoo.com.
I am sure this event may be an opener for many and discourage the students /scientists using unfair means and quick steps to achieve fame and recognition overnight.Peer pressure,pressure from supervisors to be productive and that too in terms of expected results lead to these unfortunate mishappenings/misconducts Certainly supervisors need to be more alert and discourage such activities by being more vigilent.I feel there should be more jounals publishing negative results to prevent such frauds.One should believe in what is done earnestly and not indulge in greed of publications by unfair means.One should always remember that ultimately the truth prevails and persons indulged in misconduct can never go on for a long time ahead and one slip can finish and end their career.
I accept the comments posted by most of my scientific peers. In the scientific world today, publishing papers and getting grants have blinded researchers about the real reason for doing research, which being increasing the quality of life of human kind. This kind of misconduct reflects on scientists who perform genuine research and undermines their credibility. It looks like having to falsify data to produce results for publications and grants has become very common in the scientific community. Its not just the junior researchers who are to be blamed for this kind of misconduct but also the PIs and other higher authorities who overlook these issues because they see the results that they want to see based on their hypothesis. As is correctly mentioned by one of my peers, a hypothesis can be proved either wrong or right and that is the reason it is called a hypothesis and not a theory. We have to form the hypothesis based on preliminary data and not vice versa.
Lincoln Bacon, I tried to E-mail you but it came back undeliverable.
This is another example of scientific misconduct and the important thing to see is, as many others pointed, who is the corresponding author. It seems like over too much trust on one person. Science seems to be like an emotional business, its more of personal rather professional. I think in the race of becoming a "star" researcher, many are fooling themselves and the society. HS
I am very interested in developing tools to study ethics and publication (see a Nature commentary in Jan 24th about duplication and plagiarism). On of the issue and question that we are unable to tackle for now, is how can we identify data falsification? So how did they catch her? I am extremely interesting. On the other side, there are guys like Lincoln Bacon that explains in his comment here (see above) that although he blew the whistle, nobody listened to him. It seems to me that again, there are some serious methodology issues, and varying standards.
I hate people who delete others' post or comment.
Statistics show that women find it very hard to make their way into Academy, Politics or Mangement (see www.intelligent-women.blogspot.com). I am not aware that it has ever been studied, but I fear that they are being used as the easiest scapegoats and much more frequently brought down for misconduct than men, despite that their mumbers are much lower, and despite that frequently they don't follow their own advice in their decissions.
The case of Kristin Roovers does not astound me. While, surely most of us scientists are honest (as our aim is to look for the truth), scientists are human too. More often the society expects much from scientists and looks upon scientists as some sort of Super-Human-Beings, which surely we are not! There can be numerous reasons as to why a person fudged data. For example, it may reflect a lack of character, psychological problems, such as delusions, etc. Or even academic pressure to produce data rapidly. Thus before penalizing a scientist it is imperative that an objective investigation be undertaken as to the cause of this improper behaviour of the concerned person. If it is discovered that the individual lacks character, surely such a person has no place in science. Finally, one can conclude that by falsifying data an individual is not only harming humanity but also harming themselves. Upinder Fotadar, D.Sc Research Scientist Basic Sciences Division New York University 345 East, 24th Street New York, NY 10010 Phone: 212-998-9578 E-mail: uf4@nyu.edu