How much research is fraudulent?

Discussion in 'Science' started by Jack Hays, Jul 11, 2021.

  1. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Your general direction is that science has been so fraudulent that new organizations have to start trying to save the day.

    You can't pretend that is support for science.

    Plus, I'd point out that you present individual reports that do NOT form support for your contention of science being that supremely fraudulent.

    Not ONCE have you divided the number of cases of retracted papers by the number of reviewed and published papers, for example. You present nothing about methods that scientists use to defend themselves against possible incorrect results.

    Nor have you found any other legitimate approach to answering your title question.

    You treat it as a given that today's science is so fraudulent that it must be rescued by you.

    I do not accept that premise.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2021
  2. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    On the contrary, the "starting point" formulation was a direct response to a question posed by you.
     
  3. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Sorry, but that post includes too many falsehoods to take seriously.
     
  4. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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  5. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Quite often they simply turn into giant echo chambers, where each largely repeats what was said before them, and the next will repeat it yet again. And amazingly, there is little to no cases where somebody finds any evidence or does research to see if the original premise is correct or not.

    And even more disturbing, is that if you do not agree with the "consensus" in one area, you are often tagged as being "anti-science". To be honest, I largely tune out some large areas of "scientists" because of this kind of arrogance. That is not science, it is religion.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2021
    Jack Hays and AARguy like this.
  6. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Once again, you ignore how many papers there are.

    If there were 32,000 papers, your number of retractions would be hugely significant.

    If there are a million papers, not so much.

    Beyond that, I'd once again point out that the issue of reviewing papers is not even SLIGHTLY new.

    And, to suggest that this thing of yours is an initial approach ignores that this has been an issue from the first paper ever written under modern standards through to today.

    You are still trying to pitch science as crap that needs YOU to fix it.
     
  7. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    You are in your own universe.
     
  8. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I object to this forum being used as a method of raising money.

    If that is not DIRECTLY forbidden, it absolutely should be.
     
  9. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Tell you what -- I'll delete that customary boilerplate from future posts.
     
  10. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Another battle won on behalf of scientific integrity.
    Frontiers retracts a dozen papers, many more expected
    [​IMG]

    The publisher Frontiers has retracted at least a dozen papers in the last month, after announcing an “extensive internal investigation” into “potentially falsified research.”

    Here’s an example of a notice, this one from Frontiers in Endocrinology for “Overexpression of microRNA-216a-3p Accelerates the Inflammatory Response in Cardiomyocytes in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus by Targeting IFN-α2,” which was originally published in November 2020:

    Continue reading
     
  11. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I'm constantly impressed with the honesty and uprightness in science, an it's multilayered system of review and verification.

    And, this constant policing adds more layers that help allow us to be confident in what we hear from science.


    Could anyone possibly imagine if this kind of multi-level examination and honesty came to politics, or homeopathy, or any of a number of other fields where mountains of falsity is published daily?

    Think just what it would mean to have the claims against our democracy go through these rigors.

    In SO MANY fields, there are blatant liars who spew their wares for nefarious purposes with NO adequate checking going on BEFORE those reports are published!!!

    Not so in science. EVERY paper that is published is reviewed by a known organization that lives or dies based on whether people can trust it.

    How science works needs to be extended to these other fields.
     
  12. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Then I assume you are an admirer of Retraction Watch.
     
  13. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I'm fine with carefully watching. There are many layers of watching and that's one of the TERRIFIC things about science.

    What I am NOT FINE ABOUT AT ALL is when a tiny fraction of papers are found to be questionable and those are used to impugn all science.

    And, THAT is what I see happening on this thread.

    When you find a 100 papers retracted, you need to divide that by the tens of thousands of reviewed papers to show "how much research is fraudulent".

    When you claim something is FRAUDULENT, you have to show that it was FRAUDULENT and not just mistaken in some way. FRAUD is VERY different from mistakes.

    What you're doing is as bad as calling someone a liar when they clearly represented the truth to the best that they were capable. Put it this way - frauds need to be removed from science as a profession. Mistakes need to be rectified. That is a real difference.

    Then, there is the issue that the soft sciences have much less capability in creating controls for the tests they run, as their subjects are so often human or at least living. They can't condemn their subjects to death or significant bodily harm. So, error rates are going to be higher.

    So, attributing error rates in the soft sciences to the hard sciences is FRAUD by you or anyone else trying that.


    So, here's the deal.

    > I'm glad that there is continual monitoring and only wish it were applied to other fields than just science.

    > I do NOT see you handling this topic with an appropriate level of care. What you are posting is CLEARLY targeted to degrade trust in science in ways that absolutely are NOT warranted.

    > As we've seen in the past, you are continuing to promote the company you like. In the past, it was SPECIFICALLY a request for donations - which is NOT a legitimate activity on this board. So, I'm NOT happy with you continuing to promote your company.
     
  14. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Not my company -- actually not a company at all.
    The mission is to promote scientific integrity.
     
  15. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    The fundamental catch here is that I don't believe that your approach is promoting scientific integrity.
     
  16. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    I am indifferent to what you believe or don't believe.
     
  17. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I'm pretty darn aware that you aren't comfortable actually discussing your direction in this thread.
     
  18. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    I'm quite proud of this thread.
    “Retraction Watch is one of the best innovations in science in recent years. The wit enhances the message. Tune in.” — former BMJ editor-in-chief Richard Smith
     
  19. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    For those not familiar, let's remember that there are about 10,000,000 papers published on preprint servers.

    While these papers are not all reviewed, this is a common first stop for papers, and it represents the work of individuals who are staking their careers on their papers being valid.

    So, when Hays and others who make THEIR careers out of finding problems in papers, PLEASE ...

    - Divide his numbers by 10,000,000 to determine what the actual impact is on the trust we have in the research being done.

    - Recognize that the title of this OP is about fraud, while Hays is NOT REPORTING FRAUD. He's reporting cases where mistakes were made.
     
  20. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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  21. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Hmmm.
    Authors admit to stealing parts of a paper from a thesis on an unrelated subject
    [​IMG]
    “Nailed” doctoral theses on a wall in Biomedicum, Campus Solna, in spring 2021. Photo: Katarina Sternudd

    The authors of a paper in a cancer journal have retracted it after acknowledging they lifted parts of it from a thesis about an unrelated topic.

    Here’s the retraction notice for “Regulation of RUNX3 Expression by DNA Methylation in Prostate Cancer,” originally published in July 2020 in Cancer Management and Research, a Dove title:

    Continue reading
     
  22. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    But, you weren't limiting to that.

    And, if you want to prove that science is a fraudulent enterprise as your OP implies, continue dividing your pathetic case count by 10 million.

    Also, remember what I've pointed out to you in the past. Single papers are NOT treated by science as the final word on any topic. We see that constantly in the world of health, climate, etc., where single papers are NOT ACCEPTED as the final word.

    That is, another defense against misinformation is the way that science is consumed by people versed in consuming science.

    Obviously, this is an important topic, because of the very nature of science (in that hypotheses can not be proven true), because of the opportunity for statistical and process errors, and because humans are humans.

    But, YOU are touting the idea that science is fraudulent.

    That is not demonstrated, regardless of how hard you try. And, it is a HUGE disservice.
     
  23. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Nope. I have never claimed science is fraudulent. I claim, and can document, that there are fraudulent practitioners in science. Exposing them is how we defend science.
     
  24. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You are making NO attempt to defend science in any way.

    You are working hard to make science look bad by presenting a tiny number of cases as fraud - even when they aren't fraud.

    NOT ONCE have you show the results of your findings, divided by the number of papers published or preprinted.

    I you wanted to show a measure of how good or bad science is, you would DO THE DIVIDE.
     
  25. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Sorry, but that's irrelevant since I have made no claim about "how good or bad science is." Like it says on the Retraction Watch home page their work is: "Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process."
     
    Last edited: Jan 18, 2022

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