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It's Time to Criminalise Serious Scientific Misconduct
New Scientist ^ | September 15, 2014 | Rachel Nuwer

Posted on 09/15/2014 1:13:19 PM PDT by lbryce

Why should research misconduct be illegal? After 30 years of observing how science deals with the problem, I have sadly come to the conclusion that it should be a crime, for three main reasons. First, in a lot of cases, people have been given substantial grants to do honest research, so it really is no different from financial fraud or theft. Second, we have a whole criminal justice system that is in the business of gathering and weighing evidence – which universities and other employers of researchers are not very good at. And finally, science itself has failed to deal adequately with research misconduct.

How can we recognise honest mistakes? It's quite difficult. Clearly not every minor misconduct should be regarded as a crime. And as with all laws, it will take time to establish what merits prosecution and what can be dealt with by a reprimand. But we know peer review doesn't detect all misconduct. If research seems wrong or impossible, we start with the assumption that it's just an honest mistake and then look into it. You can sometimes detect fraud statistically, because if you invent data you tend to come up with a recurrent pattern. But in most cases, it is detected because somebody blows a whistle.

Are there cases in which you think researchers should have been prosecuted? There are cases where someone demonstrated intent, not simply made a horrible mistake. For example, I was involved in the case of a researcher named Malcolm Pearce, who published two papers in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. One was a case report of successfully re-implanting an ectopic pregnancy into a patient's womb and another was a randomised trial about treating recurrent miscarriage. It turned out the case study patient did not exist, and there was also

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: globalwarming
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To: MrB

Good point.

Any aggrieved party needs to sue funding organization as well as the scientists who are part of the consiracy.


21 posted on 09/15/2014 1:35:26 PM PDT by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
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To: MrB

You hit it on the nail. Anytime someone tells me about something some “experts” found in a study, I ask them if they know who paid for the study.


22 posted on 09/15/2014 1:37:50 PM PDT by Rusty0604
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To: lbryce

Beware this slippery slope!

Criminal or even harsh civil procedural provisions can be used from both sides. Al Gore and his followers would not hesitate to imprison scientists who disagreed with them.

The way to uphold scientific standards of searching for the truth is to control the money and come down harshly on entire institutions that harbor even one fraudulent scientific investigator.

Justice in the military is often meted out to entire units and not individuals. If one member of a unit fails or violates the code, the entire unit is punished.

So it must be with centers of science; let one principle researcher be convicted of fraud and punish the entire center. Then watch how science center leaders climb all over every research project to save their own hides. The peer review process would once again become a serious endeavor, (my apologies to the thousands upon thousands of scientists and researchers who take their profession seriously and already act to uphold the highest scientific standards).


23 posted on 09/15/2014 1:39:46 PM PDT by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: Rusty0604

There’s always “stages” of the study before it is finalized.

If at any stage it looks like the study is not concluding something favorable to the funding entity, the research is stopped.


24 posted on 09/15/2014 1:42:31 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: MrNJ

Exactly, fraud can already be prosecuted under fraud statutes and as a tort. Giving modern governments the power to silence scientific dissent would be a terrible step backwards.


25 posted on 09/15/2014 1:43:16 PM PDT by JLS
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To: lbryce

Here’s what happens when you’re on the wrong side of Big Pharm so this suggestion may be ill-advised.

http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/the-vaccine-autism-cover-up-how-one-doctors-career-was-destroyed-for-telling-the-truth/


26 posted on 09/15/2014 1:44:07 PM PDT by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: BenLurkin

[ Better idea: let whoever funded the research sue to get their money back. ]

Well if they can prove the sceintists frauded them, then allow them to sue....

The problem is that if sceicne if fully institutionalized then it becomes an orthodoxy and we end up with any scientific upstarts being hammered down....

The process of science must remain chaotic, especially when it challenges the status quo...


27 posted on 09/15/2014 1:48:55 PM PDT by GraceG (No, My Initials are not A.B.)
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To: MrNJ

I agree with you unless the scientists are engaged in fraud, intentionally taking money for phony results. I think current laws already address fraud. Intense political and social pressure has always affected science. Such is more exactly the case for AGW. Modeling is prone to bias. Regional studies can’t be represented as global.

As you say, if you criminalize “inaccurate” science you just substitute political bias for scientific bias. Even AGW hasn’t been disproven, it just hasn’t much evidence in its favor vs a pile of evidence against which is, in some cases, being suppressed.


28 posted on 09/15/2014 1:49:17 PM PDT by JimSEA
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To: lbryce
Its time to stop criminalizing every disagreement.

How do you think the left would use this sort of law?

29 posted on 09/15/2014 1:51:14 PM PDT by Lazamataz (First we beat the Soviet Union. Then we became them.)
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To: MrNJ
"No, it’s not. Otherwise we would find politically incorrect scientific research suppressed with the threat of criminal prosecution."

I agree. Bad or dishonest research should be penalized by the pertinent professional associations and universities. Failing that, the press should involve themselves in exposing fraud. Keep the government out of it as much as possible.
30 posted on 09/15/2014 1:55:10 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: lbryce

“I can’t think of a better example in which to criminalize serious scientific misconduct than the hack hypothesis of Global Warming. “

I’d say yes to this, but the problem is the thing that will be criminalized is dissent with the “accepted, settled, consensus” science. It will be like hate speech in, say, Canada, where you can be prosecuted for speaking the truth about Islam, abortion, race relations, etc. (The problem with ANY law is it will immediately be coopted by the Left.)


31 posted on 09/15/2014 1:55:44 PM PDT by Gen.Blather
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To: lbryce
I really wonder, on occasion, how the scientific community came to understand the role of anti-depressants and suicidal thoughts. The only way they could understand it is if they were conducting experiments and bumped into those results. Were those experiments conducted honestly and legally and ethically?

Somehow they had to be able to make adjustments in the medication.

Same goes for MRI's. It occurs to me that tests needed to be conducted which would allow them to know how to refine the dials.

Did they use any of the studies done with electro-shock therapy? Were those experiments conducted honestly and legally and ethically?

How many of those studies included Nazi doctor input?

These are just a few of the questions floating around in my head right now.

32 posted on 09/15/2014 1:56:37 PM PDT by Slyfox (Satan's goal is to rub out the image of God he sees in the face of every human.)
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To: lbryce

Been there. Done that. Didn't wok so well.............

33 posted on 09/15/2014 1:58:30 PM PDT by Red Badger (If you compromise with evil, you just get more evil..........................)
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To: kosciusko51

Excellent book.


34 posted on 09/15/2014 2:00:40 PM PDT by InterceptPoint (Remember Mississippi)
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To: lbryce

This article is asinine. Liberals would criminalize dissent.


35 posted on 09/15/2014 2:03:58 PM PDT by stinkerpot65 (Global warming is a Marxist lie.)
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To: MrB

It’s been this way for years. I’d love to see it change. I quit doing research years ago for many reasons, but that was one of them.


36 posted on 09/15/2014 2:09:01 PM PDT by FamiliarFace
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To: FamiliarFace

I did think of a way to work it, though.

Say you’re an unagendized scientist who’s been commissioned by Entity X to come to conclusion A.

Your initial finds show that you’ll arrive at conclusion B if you continue. Entity X discontinues funding.

You search for Entity Y that wants conclusion B to be publicized.


37 posted on 09/15/2014 2:11:54 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: lbryce

I think we should go back to having ‘priests’ forecast and ‘control’ the weather, and burn all the scientists at the stake like we used to do to witches.


38 posted on 09/15/2014 2:15:53 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lost my tagline on Flight MH370. Sorry for the inconvenience.)
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To: lbryce
How about the FACT cannabis oil cures cancers!

This was discovered and burried in the Nixon era. Cannabis was promptly set to the same schedule as heroin and cocaine, and all research was banned on it.

BANNED!


Who in their right mind would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for their deadly treatments when the cure could be grown in their back yard for free?

Scientific misconduct on a sociopathically criminal scale.

39 posted on 09/15/2014 2:27:14 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist (Jeremiah 50:32 "The arrogant one will stumble and fall ; / ?)
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To: lbryce
I'd hazard a guess that this dame was prolly all in for DHS & TSA as well.

Government - at any level - is an implicit gun pointed straight at your head.

40 posted on 09/15/2014 2:30:47 PM PDT by tomkat
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