Posted on 11/03/2011 5:44:25 AM PDT by reaganaut1
A well-known psychologist in the Netherlands whose work has been published widely in professional journals falsified data and made up entire experiments, an investigating committee has found. Experts say the case exposes deep flaws in the way science is done in a field, psychology, that has only recently earned a fragile respectability.
The psychologist, Diederik Stapel, of Tilburg University, committed academic fraud in “several dozen” published papers
...
In a prolific career, Dr. Stapel published papers on the effect of power on hypocrisy, on racial stereotyping and on how advertisements affect how people view themselves. Many of his findings appeared in newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, which reported in December on his study about advertising and identity.
In a statement posted Monday on Tilburg University’s Web site, Dr. Stapel apologized to his colleagues. “I have failed as a scientist and researcher,” it read, in part. “I feel ashamed for it and have great regret.”
More than a dozen doctoral theses that he oversaw are also questionable, the investigators concluded, after interviewing former students, co-authors and colleagues. Dr. Stapel has published about 150 papers, many of which, like the advertising study, seem devised to make a splash in the media. The study published in Science this year claimed that white people became more likely to “stereotype and discriminate” against black people when they were in a messy environment, versus an organized one. Another study, published in 2009, claimed that people judged job applicants as more competent if they had a male voice. The investigating committee did not post a list of papers that it had found fraudulent.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The ‘doctor’ knew what his opinions were and he KNEW they were correct (after all, they were HIS opinions).
Actually performing research using the scientific method Research would have been a colossal waste of time and money.
Psychologists have no morals. They are “me first” and that is what they “counsel”. Before I figured this out, I actually had one say to me “what’s in it for you?” Since I am Catholic, such comments were meaningless. Christians, real Christians, don’t operate out of selfishness as their primary motivation. Psychologists do. I even asked another one, “How does that fit in with Judeo/Christian values?” and she was dumbstruck.
I wonder how many of the left's favorite social issues are backed up by bogus experiments? Most of them?
Liberalism corrupts everything it touches. Even a quasi-science like psychology. Why should we be surprised?
MsGoogle... Pseudo-Sciences: Sociology and Psychology….
Precisely. Many "scientists" get the funding for their work from politicians in DC. If they want to eat on a regular basis, all they have to do is to find "scientific evidence" that backs up the agenda of the corrupt political class (ie: finding any and all excuses possible to raise taxes on the clueless masses who always fall for the illigitimate "argument by authority"). The "global warming HOAX is the most recent glaring example. FOLLOW THE MONEY.
ALWAYS.
"...the vast majority of academic "product" is merely junk food for the mind (as always, we are speaking of the humanities, or subhumanities, to be exact)."
"..A magazine such as Psychology Today represents stupidity squared, because it mostly boils down the nonsense of academia for a semi-literate audience, in the same way that Time or Newsweek purvey idiotarian liberal conventional wisdom to the 8th grade mass-mentality. " ...."
And the NY Slimes headlined every one of Stapel’s bogus “findings”. Because the “findings” fit into the leftwing preconceptions of the Slimes.
Stapel has at least apologized. How about an apology from the Slimes?
When one thinks of court cases which may well have been decided wrongly, influenced by some expert’s testimony based on bogus research, the destruction wrought by the actions of thse people can only be punished in a different venue by someone far beyond my pay grade.
The ‘scientists’ are quickly stereotyping themselves into snakeoil and used cars salesmen.
I suspect fraud is much more common in this and similar fields than anybody wants to admit.
In fact, it’s virtually a policy. I once worked with someone who was finishing a doctorate in sociology. For her final project for her dissertation, she couldn’t get enough interviews, and in fact could get virtually none that bore out her thesis. So her advisers just told her to “extrapolate” (i.e., make it up). She did, defended it in a room full of people who had probably all gotten their degrees through such fraud, and got her doctorate.
It appears that psychology “research” has members who are as mathematically and morally challenged as climate “research”.
Of course, both types make Sheldon laugh out loud.
Why not?
That's been the case for a long time. Over 30 years ago I was assisting professors doing research, and it was all about "what will get grant money?" and "what will get my grant renewed?"
It's all about the $$$, and a big part of getting the $$$ is giving the people who give you the $$$ what they want to hear.
I hate to tell you but most everything pushed by the NSF is probably questionable at this point. It’s all, even most of the ‘real’ science, agenda driven. Global warming ‘science’ anyone? Grantees must bow to their money sources.
Most of the work in the social sciences is bunk. It’s where useless liberals go for a job that pays and has great benefits.
Considering that most of the theories in sciences today are founded on atheism and ideas of atheists, why be surprised when their methods are immoral?
Science should be holistic. Heart, mind, soul, and body included or it is flawed.
In history the renaissance is viewed as a time of enlightenment when in actuality it was a time of great immorality and darkness.
Actually, I am mostly surprised only that I can still be surprised...on occasion!
;)
Semper Watching!
*****
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