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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    Sure.
    Wow - attempting to make MONEY off of attacking science!!

    I'm glad you pointed this out.

    It's one of the more disgusting assaults on science I've seen.
     
  2. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Who is trying to make money?
    Retraction Watch - Wikipedia

    Retraction Watch is a blog that reports on retractions of scientific papers and on related topics.[1] The blog was launched in August 2010[2] and is produced by science writers Ivan Oransky (Vice President, Editorial Medscape)[3] and Adam Marcus (editor of Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News).[4] Its parent organization is the Center for Scientific Integrity. . . .
    Retraction Watch has been funded by a variety of sources, including donations and grants. They received grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.[17] The database of retractions was funded by a 400,000 dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation received in 2015.[18][19] They have partnered with the Center for Open Science, which is also funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, to create a retraction database on the Open Science Framework.[20]
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2021
  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I see every reason to believe that you post this here to support your general assault on science.

    The thing is that legitimate science has numerous methods of policing its product so that we are less likely to be faced with false ideas. In fact, those that repeatedly fail can be identified and their claims can be held as specious. This can end the careers of charlatans.

    What you are doing here is like disparaging our relative safety by blaming our justice system for penalize perpetrators for crimes.
     
  4. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

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    Um, no.

    Not only that, policing is overall time-consuming and costly, and fraudulent science has an overall net negative impact.

    On top of that, it isn't limited to just science. It includes all disciplines.

    Aren't you one of those who rail against the high cost of university tuition?

    As I've mentioned before, it was Academia who created this nightmare.

    By the 1990s, the benchmark was "publish or perish" meaning if you don't publish something, you never get a tenured professorship and worse, you could be sacked and never get another teaching job.

    If you don't think that had a net negative impact on US universities, you're wrong.

    For one thing, it drove up tuition costs, because now professors have to be given sabbaticals to conduct research in order to have a chance to publish.

    That means you're paying for a professor who isn't even teaching.

    And it means the university has to hire someone else to teach the professor's classes, since the professor is off on sabbatical.

    We used to call those "someone else" "street people" because the university literally walked out onto the street and said, "Hey, you! You gotta bachelor's? We'll let you take a 3 semester graduate level course for free if you teach this class for us."

    How do you think that works out? I can tell you from personal experience it sucks, because there's nothing like paying a lotta money to be taught something by someone who doesn't even understand the material they're teaching.

    And then about a decade later, the benchmark changed from "publish or perish" to "be cited or perish."

    It's no longer enough to publish. Now you have to be cited by others in their papers.

    How do you think that works? Well, the more papers you publish, the better chance you have of being cited.

    Who do you think pays for fraudulent research?

    Tax-payers do, and whether it is federal tax money or State tax money makes no difference.

    Even if it's private research money, meaning it comes from donations or the careful investment of a gift bequeathed in some Dowager's Will, it is wasteful and inefficient.

    Then there's the matter of wasting tax-payer money or private research money on following up on someone's research only to find their research is fraudulent.

    Part of the problem in addition to "be cited or perish" is the job angle.

    Whether it's tax-payer or private money, that's what provides them with a job, meaning income, as in a salary.

    You keep your "job" by renewing your grant and that leads to falsifying data and committing fraud in order to show "results" so the grant can be sustained, which is one reason why global warming won't die. Yeah, that's right, too many are dependent on the grants for a job.[/QUOTE]
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2021
  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    That is a totally legitimate cost of science. So, I don't know what you are complaining about.

    Are you claiming there are charlatans? Of course there are. But, that isn't a criticism of science - it's a criticism of charlatans.
    You need to be clearer about what you are suggesting here.
    No, I oppose the way education is funded - at all levels, though the details are somewhat different for various levels of education.
    This has to do with what the reason is for the specific institution's purposes actually are.

    Many universities are more focused on scientific research than on teaching. Thus it is no surprise that they have measures in place to determine whether the individual is producing sufficient research.

    I'd point out that student applicants need to take this into account when they choose what institution they want to attend. Attending a research institution such as Harvard or MIT as an undergraduate can be a mistake because of this issue.
    Research is conducted as a mainstream activity - not as a sabbatical.
    It's worse than that!! By a LOT. Research institutions do NOT select professors for their teaching ability. They select them for their research record. So, if a student expects good teaching skills they need to be careful where they attend.
    The rest of this is just plain BS and certainly warrants NO comment.

    As you, I, Hays and others point out, there are multiple levels of review of research product.

    Yes, bad science gets found. So, consumers have to be aware of what they are looking at.

    Questions like "Does this article reflect the actual study at the root of the report?", "Did this study pass legitimate review by a respectable journal?", "Is this study supported by other experts in the field?, etc., have to be answered.
     
  6. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Sorry, but that's just irrational nonsense.
     
  7. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You've been attempting to prove science to be bunk for MONTHS.

    Now, you suggest it is "irrational nonsense" to recognize that?
     
  8. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    And that's just more nonsense. My points have always been in support of science. What I oppose is hype.
     
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  9. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

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    No, it is not a legitimate cost of science.

    Inefficiency can never be legitimate. I would venture to guess each $1 of fraudulent research results in the waste of $2 or more in legitimate research.

    Regardless, criminal charges need to be brought against them. There's no difference between fraudulent misrepresenting scientific data and fraudulently misrepresenting goods or services.

    What part of "all disciplines" do you not understand?

    Fraudulent research isn't limited to just science. It occurs in history, psychology, sociology, medicine, anthropology, archaeology, and a host of other disciplines.

    That isn't relevant. Such persons are specifically hired to oversee research and development and not teach.

    It's irrelevant further still, because many are hired to teach graduate level courses only, and their research is related to the graduate level courses they teach. That is advantageous, because the grad students get the benefit of on-going/current research usually directly related to their field of study.

    No, many are given sabbatical to specifically conduct research. I finished my doctorate before one of my professors went on sabbatical for research, otherwise I would have had to wait another year.

    It's worse than that!! By a LOT. Research institutions do NOT select professors for their teaching ability. They select them for their research record. So, if a student expects good teaching skills they need to be careful where they attend.

    No, it actually happened at Miami University.

    At the time I was a secondary education major. The operand is "secondary."

    The street person hired to teach classroom management had never taught at the high school level. To suggest that you manage a classroom of 2nd graders the same way you manage a classroom of sophomores is absurd.

    The street person hired to teach reading in the classroom couldn't get it through his thick skull that the purpose/objective of the course was to show how to incorporate reading, like when your teaching WW I you might have students read excerpts from Johnny Got His Gun, or better yet work with the Literature Department to have students read the whole book.

    The idiot thought the class was about teaching students how to read. He didn't understand that reading instruction was a function of primary school education, not secondary school education.He took great offense at that, especially after we pointed out students are supposed to know how to read before they get to high school. It got violent. Chairs were thrown.

    These street people are not adjunct professors. The adjunct professors actually had PhDs.

    As you, I, Hays and others point out, there are multiple levels of review of research product.

    That's absurd. Consumers are lay-people. They rely on experts and if the experts are engaging in fraud and deception, then they are harmed.

    That's silly. The whole point of peer-review is to weed out bad research, but if all they're gonna do is rubber-stamp everything then it will never end.
     
  10. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You have no evidence for this. And, the inefficiency I pointed to has more to do with the cost of policing results - the levels of review that is performed.

    So, I don't know what the heck you want. Are you suggesting we should do LESS review? I would certainly NOT agree with that.
    This would be essentially impossible to adjudicate in a court.

    But, the review process along with sites such as the one cited by Hays do identify problems. And, the individuals involved do end up being unhireable. Becoming unhireable or backwatered in the field that is the major source of one's investment in gaining expertise is a serious penalty.
    Exactly. In fact, psychology, sociology, etc., ARE more prone to mistakes for the simple reason that the strong controls of the hard sciences can not be applied to humans, obviously.
    No, it is common that PhDs hired by our elite universities DO have teaching responsibilities even though they are hired for and perhaps spend more time on research.
    That's an unfortunate aspect of scheduling. And, a sabbatical is certainly not a vacation. But, it is not a significant portion of employment time.

    And, I pointed out your comment on how professors are selected.

    Or, did you accidentally miss-apply square brackets?
    This was a key move by conservatives who thought that pedagogy is garbage and that the only important issue is whether the individual has experience in the "real world".

    I agree that this is absolutely CRAP. Teaching is very much a serious field of study. We just don't treat it with any respect at all.
    This is just one of the reasons we need review as I keep pointing out. We agree on that, I think.

    But, there is a problem beyond that.

    We do NOT have a good supply of high quality science communicators in the media. The media make major mistakes in interpreting science all the time.

    The result is that the general public DOES need to take personal action in how they consume this product. Reviewing scientific papers for accuracy, etc., etc., is just not a solution to this part of the problem.
    I'm all in favor of quality review. And, I disagree that review is substantially "peer review". Peer review implies a relationship with a reviewer. Science isn't that small.

    I'll point out that there are HUGE numbers of papers that do not pass review for one reason or another. In fact, many papers are sent back to the researcher with work they must do. This is also due to the number of papers written. Journals and other sources of review do not have the capacity to review all papers.

    This has been one of the complaints made by Dr. Judith Curry. She actually proposes a secondary system of review that is DESIGNED to allow far more speculative papers to pass review - papers that would not pass the review we have in place.

    Her point is that TOO MUCH is excluded. And, this CAN be a problem, as it can suppress wild ideas that on occasion have more merit than originally thought.

    I'd also point out that we have preprint locations in most if not all sciences where papers are placed before they are reviewed. So, it IS possible to look for papers that didn't get reviewed or didn't pass review. This doesn't quite answer what Curry wants. On the other hand it allows looking for the absolute latest research - a feature that allows for finding opportunities for collaboration, etc.
     
  11. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Cool!

    More confirmation of continuing verification!

    The thing is, though, that there are tens of thousands of papers that have been reviewed and published over that period.


    So, an honest response to this case would need to include:
    - work on improving the gate keeping, which must be considered a never ending task.

    - divide this one paper by the tens of thousands of papers to detect the actual impact.

    In general, the finding of one false paper is in itself inconsequential. In fact, the presentation of ALL the papers you have posted as being problematic are inconsequential as an assault on science as dividing by the total number of papers shows how infrequently this occurs.

    But, it can be an indication for methods of improvement toward the impossible goal of perfection.

    Of course, the larger issue IS one of where to go for information. And, our science methodology is MONUMENTALLY better than ANY other possible direction.

    So, I'm curious what your objective is here.

    Are you working to improve science? If so, how come NOTHING on what needs to be done for improvement???

    Or, are you trying to degrade science. If so, you are failing, as you offer no possible alternative and the number of posts you have made is inconsequential compared to the size of the world effort in scientific progress.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2021
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  12. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Just because people are arrested for fraud does not mean the system does not work - in fact it proves unit DOES work and you WILl be found out and brought to justice - unless of course your name is Donald Trump
     
  13. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Your paranoia is getting stale. Had you bothered to look into the matter, you would have discovered this.
    The Center For Scientific Integrity


    The mission of the Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent organization of Retraction Watch, is to promote transparency and integrity in science and scientific publishing, and to disseminate best practices and increase efficiency in science.

    The goals of the Center fall under four broad areas:

    • A database of retractions, expressions of concern and related publishing events, generated by the work of Retraction Watch. The database will be freely available to scientists, scholars and anyone else interested in analyzing the information.
    • Long-form, larger-impact writing, including magazine-length articles, reports and books.
    • Scholarship on scientific integrity and incentives in science.
    • Aid and assistance to groups and individuals whose interests in transparency and accountability intersect with ours, and who could benefit from shared expertise and resources.
    The Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit. Its work has been funded by generous grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Trust.

    Learn more about our Board of Directors here. And read our 2020 tax return here, our 2019 tax return here, our 2018 tax return here, our 2017 tax return here, our 2016 tax return here, our 2015 tax return here, and our 2014 tax return here.
     
  14. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Retraction Watch was founded because too much research was not reproducible.
    The Center For Scientific Integrity


    The mission of the Center for Scientific Integrity, the parent organization of Retraction Watch, is to promote transparency and integrity in science and scientific publishing, and to disseminate best practices and increase efficiency in science.

    The goals of the Center fall under four broad areas:

    • A database of retractions, expressions of concern and related publishing events, generated by the work of Retraction Watch. The database will be freely available to scientists, scholars and anyone else interested in analyzing the information.
    • Long-form, larger-impact writing, including magazine-length articles, reports and books.
    • Scholarship on scientific integrity and incentives in science.
    • Aid and assistance to groups and individuals whose interests in transparency and accountability intersect with ours, and who could benefit from shared expertise and resources.
    The Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit. Its work has been funded by generous grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Trust.

    Learn more about our Board of Directors here. And read our 2020 tax return here, our 2019 tax return here, our 2018 tax return here, our 2017 tax return here, our 2016 tax return here, our 2015 tax return here, and our 2014 tax return here.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2021
  15. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    But, that is NOT what you have been about on this board.

    ALL your posts on this topic have been about promoting the idea that science as practiced the world over is fraudulent and thus can not be trusted.

    If you want to switch to a NEW topic (for you, at least) promoting improvements in how we consume science, how we verify science results (such as improvements and more requirements on review by reputable sources), etc., then do that.

    But, that is NOT what you are doing.

    In fact, you have promoted papers on climate change that are totally contrarian and haven't even been reviewed!

    You can't claim you are working toward improvements in how we do science when your OWN PRACTICE is to ignore the most fundamental of gate keeping that is used today.

    There is also the other big problem you have on this topic.

    You raise the "how much is fraudulent" question, but you present NO IDEA of an answer or any valid approach to finding an answer to that question.

    Your approach is not consistent with any direction other than that you want America to ignore science entirely.
     
  16. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    My patience is exhausted, and I'll just have to call that post what it is: a lie.
     
  17. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    I do not believe you can cite a single climate paper linked by me that has not been peer-reviewed and published.
     
    Last edited: Dec 26, 2021
  18. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Retraction Watch and the Center for Scientific Integrity are the starting points.
     
  19. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    That is obviously false.
     
  20. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You haven't even TRIED to make a case for that.

    Plus, there are other approaches that have long been in use today. Suggesting that there is a need for a "starting point" can NOT be supported.
     
  21. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I have not seen you supporting science in any way.

    Posts such as on this thread have positioned science as a failure with there needing to be a "starting point" for improvement in quality - as if that is some sort of new idea of yours.

    The fact that you make NO effort toward measuring whether science is a failure is just further evidence that you are not actually investigating your own thread title.
     
  22. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Retraction Watch is cited as part of the solution in the very first post in this thread.
     
  23. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    You have obviously not read the thread.
     
  24. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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  25. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I've read every single post in this thread.

    And, your comments about minor wording changes do not change how this thread pitches science.

    Remember that you stated that these organizations are a "starting point".

    You can't have a starting point while admitting that the very design of how science works today has been focused on this issue from the very inception through to the present, with NO belief by science practitioners that such effort can ever cease.
     

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