When their evil was defeated but you want to learn what they did.
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 ...
I have been saying this for years now. Anthropological Global Warming is a scam of a gigantic magnitude. Those who profit from it should be on trial. Al Gore is perhaps the biggest thief and should be on trail first.
All true science is buried and ridiculed because today, science is 'settled'. We have now, everything you say except the burning at stake part, which I would welcome in the case of the scammers.
I'd say Al Gore more closely resembles a priest or witch doctor than a scientist.
Al Gore is in Deep DEEP trouble!!!
Don’t know her political or philosophical leanings. Nuwer is simply relating the opinions of Richard Smith, who according to the article, “ ... edited the BMJ from 1991 to 2004. He is a founding member of the Committee on Publication Ethics, a former trustee of the UK Research Integrity Office and author of The Trouble with Medical Journals (CRC Press, 2006)
Rachel Nuwer appears to be a free-lance science writer, associated with Sci. American blog network, NYTimes Greenblog, the Smithsonian, Tech Page One etc. so I would not be surprised if she has a liberal’s word view. She’s posted a bio at:
She apparently started out as I did - researching fish. I was a comparative zoologist doctoral student specializing in air-breathing fish. Then I fell into bad company and became a biophysicist and biomedical engineer.
I have once-removed acquaintance with an infamous fraud case - perhaps a major reason why I have no tolerance for scientific dishonesty. In 1968 I had an American Heart Association fellowship to work in Robert A. Good’s lab at the University of MN. In general terms, I was one of many working to elucidate the phylogenetic development of the immune response.
One of the Good’s staff was William Summerlin, later infamous at Sloan-Kettering (to which Good and a number of his people moved) for his “painted mice”. See Hixon, Joseph, “The Patchwork Mouse” and Good’s obituaries at:
http://www.jimmunol.org/content/171/12/6318.full
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2803%2914489-3/fulltext
I barely remember Summerlin; as a 17-year-old I was working mostly with young post-docs and newly-minted residents.
The whole movement is rife with subversives who are undermining the scientific method for the sake of the Progressive agenda and there is no way, with all their power, that they will allow their subversion to be redognized for what it is.
IMHO
I ran across a case like this several years ago. Phosgene is not only a war gas but an important industrial chemical. It's a precursor to some important plastics. OSHA wanted to determine safe exposure levels in industries using phosgene. The firm that was contracted to study this found some data that had been collected by the Nazis, in experiments on concentration camp inmates. The data were included in the proceedings of the Nuremberg trials of those responsible for the experiments. The firm wanted to include this data in their analyses of safe levels of exposure. That caused an enormous uproar. How dare they use Nazi data? Even if it did save lives in industries using phosgene, using that data was immoral.
I could never see that. Experimenting on concentration camp inmates is immoral. Data, however, are data, no matter where they come from. Being inanimate, they can't even rise to the level of sinning. I believe the data should have been used, because using the data might save lives.
Well, she's certainly a cutie, and has my apology if it turns out that she was maligned by a precipitously jerking knee d:^)
Rather amazing that Summerlin actually thought he'd get away with a Sharpie 'breakthrough' !
Worse than the professor who claimed to have developed cold fusion but had nothing.
Could the phosgene researchers have duplicated the study on animals rather than use old data that may or may not have been correct?
The body temperature below which a person would die was of great interest to them, as it applied to downed Nazi pilots found unconscious at sea. The training of pilots are notoriously long term and expensive so the value of a pilot's life is deemed highly prized. It's not for nothing you've got hugely expensive highly sophisticated pilot ejection seats.
They would insert a thermometer inside the body of a victim with a device preventing it from falling out, leaving them outside, sprayed with water until becoming unconscious, then reviving them by placing them among other bodies. Determining the lowest temperature in which an unconscious person would survive would be most practical in helping to saved downed pilots.
At the end of the war, there was a great debate on whether the temperature point in which death occurred should be revealed, as it was uncovered through terrible suffering loss of life in the process of the medical experiments.
Many felt revealing the point of death was disrespectful to those who died, while others felt it was the highest honor to be able to save lives with the knowledge gained by the agonizing death of others.
In the end it was determined that revealing the temperature would be the best way to honor, and pay respect to those who died in the process of acquiring the information.
The body temperature of 89 degrees Farenheit was the point below which victims would not survive, which of course have saved many people with the knowledge.
However, falsifying data, ignoring data which do not agree with the viewpoint being presented, should be dealt with within the scientific community (it used to be self-policing, to some extent).
There are situations when doing so places people in peril. It goes beyond mistakes, and transcends the boundaries of criminal negligence, willful endangerment of others, or fraud. Then there is a criminal case.
But until the politicians clean up their act (and maybe not even then) we don't need politicians ruling on what is scientifically valid. If they understood the science, chances are they wouldn't be politicians.
Does this mean that anyone challenging the Global Warming Hoax ends up in jail?
Ayn Rand seems more and more brilliant every day. Decades ago she wrote that “free scientific inquiry” is a redundancy and “governmental scientific inquiry” is a contradiction in terms. Why should anyone be surprised that “scientific” studies tend to produce the finding which was sought after when the funding was approved. That is to be expected and it should also be expected that in many or even most cases the “scientists” reaching the expected conclusions will do everything possible to convince everyone involved INCLUDING THEMSELVES that they have done honest work rather than merely reaching a preordained conclusion.
“Some of you know what I’m talking about.”
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And others without DIRECT knowledge can surmise.
“scientific” studies tend to produce the finding which was sought after when the funding was approved
“Tend to” is putting it mildly. It’s almost 100% because of the natural tendency of the funding entity to drop funding when the study’s initial findings are going against them.
Upon reflection it would appear that an effort to close one can of worms opens another much larger can while still leaving the first one open.
When their evil was defeated but you want to learn what they did.
Yep, I don’t think I ever heard of a study on the effects of smoking paid for by the tobacco companies that found any evidence of any significant health risks associated with smoking. On the other hand, those of us who have smoked in the past and gotten UNHOOKED from tobacco don’t need a study to tell us how much better off you are without tobacco.
I don’t doubt what you say at all, I was attempting to restrain my natural tendency to overstate which has been pointed out to me by some people in the past ;>)
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