"Honesty" Researcher CAUGHT Faking Studies

I dont think anyone did. I just typed it so even I didnt say it. LOL.

 

It is a lot more than that. It is a pretty extensive check generally. For example, utilizing proper methodology is often a highly involved and difficult issue. Response to reviewers can stretch to 2-3x longer than the paper itself for each of the early rounds of review.

 

Again, I am not a paper writer, and my tenure is based on my sales and profit generated, not a research paper, but if this kind of paper can be "approved" then maybe the process isn't as extensive and complete as we may think.

 

It is. Just flat out making up data is almost impossible to catch unless you have direct access to the data. Journals are pushing for that, but you still see it when data comes from third parties, such as a company, which forbids the sharing of the data. Where the red flags start going up is when a result can't be replicated under nearly any reasonable condition.

 

Oh there can be no doubt about this. All of us individuals are flawed and get too attached to ideas. Even Einstein seems to have rejected some now core ideas of physics because they clashed with his entrenched notions of science. I think our best approach is recognize that 1) some ideas are more credible than others, but 2) no idea is final and above criticism.

 

Michael Hobbes with some good thoughts. This is going to be way, way overbroad, but we should be a little more wary about research results that are released for positive publicity. Again, that's way overbroad.


Most institutions are dealing with a public funding crisis, and it sure helps to get positive writeups. Sometimes press releases from serious hard sciences research announcing very very preliminary popular results with limited data are overhyped because they involve conclusions about new findings popular health, etc. . Often very preliminary results from a single study are not necessarily falsified in their description and are written in a measured way for publication but are grossly oversimplified and overhyped in press releases in terms of the confidence in the conclusions from a single study. But it's good PR for the researcher and the institutes.


Social science results like this are even more problematic because they are based on a nonreplicable data set. But they are also far more interesting. And if research institutes are underfunded, they are often happy to pass on press releases about a “new study” without much in the way of qualifying statements, because these releases draw eyeballs and quick hits on news shows. It’s s symbiotic relationship, as journalism is also struggling as a business model and loves prewritten news releases that will draw interest. They have neither the resources nor the incentive to scrutinize the release or play it down.


Then you have the scholar who is not nearly as accomplished in a particular field but figures out a nice hook to draw interest and make some dollars off of a simplistic work that may not be false but is written simplistically for a popular audience but is passed off as true scholarship. My favorite is Reza Azlan with Zealot. It was perfectly acceptable quick read that should not be have been viewed as serious scholarship on the historical Jesus, not false but incomplete and overdetermined in its conclusions. But it was catnip for the media, especially Fox News. I swear Azlan smartly (for sales), booked an appearance on Fox News to be ambushed by one of their stupid hosts for their stupid audience, playing to ignorant Islamophobia.


A small UK press has found itself in possession of a much hotter publishing property than it had imagined, after Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth shot to No 1 in Amazon's US bestseller list when its author Reza Aslan became the subject of an extraordinary interview on US news channel Fox News.

The Westbourne Press is now hoping that Zealot will repeat the trick in the UK, and is rushing out the book in August ahead of schedule, having snapped it up "instantly" on being approached by Aslan's agent back in May. "We felt fortunate to be offered it," editor Mitch Albert said.

Video footage of Aslan's appearance on Fox – which showed presenter Lauren Green repeatedly push him on how, as a Muslim, he felt qualified to write a book about Jesus, despite his patient explanations of the scholarly nature of his work – was watched by five million people after being posted on buzzfeed, under the headline Is This The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done?


Zealot by Reza Aslan rushed into print after Fox News controversy



Suddenly Azlan had a bestseller. There were far more serious scholars that had done far more in the area of the Historical Jesus, wrote far more comprehensive books, and never made much. They were resentful


Mind you, I like Azlan. Smart guy, Jesuit educated. But he also knew how to work the system



That was an incredibly long-winded way of saying to be especially wary of so-called "scholarship" that gets a lot of play in popular media. Almost by definition, these “studies” are meant to be sugar fixes for knowledge, not true nutrition. And even if the researchers are trying to be serious, there is such a reward structure in place to try to pull the other way, sometimes with their own institution overhyping results.


In this case, there were a lot of book sales. I haven't looked it up but I bet you the researcher was far more measured and serious early on and then started making a fair amount of money with popular books and got tempted to keep pushing.

 

Honestly, if I could run all of science (which, thankfully, I obviously can't), I would say that pre-prints while under review should be scrubbed from the Internet. Pre-prints are prone to the issues you talk about (findings are often pretty preliminary), but their existence often breaks the blinding on reviews. People put up the pre-prints, get some media attention, then submit it to a journal, which also wants media attention, and reviewers know who wrote it, which benefits somebody like this at Harvard, as the journal knows that they will get tons of press coverage. I doubt anybody thinks through this whole thing, but on the margin, hard to think it doesn't affect reviewers or editors.

 

Very clever typing.

 

Thank you. What I was trying to say, only a lot more coherent. Anyone trying to figure out what I was trying to say should read this post

 

I don’t think that just because a paper is peer reviewed that we should just assume it’s true. 1) peer review’s goal isn’t to even to assess whether a finding is “true”, 2) peer review often fails at its more meager goals (see this study of peer review [which was peer reviewed!] Who Reviews the Reviewers? Feasibility of Using a Fictitious Manuscript to Evaluate Peer Reviewer Performance - ScienceDirect), and 3) the world is so complex that even if 1 and 2 weren’t the case, many findings would be discarded in the future.

That said, I am pretty sure most academics and pro-academy people in this thread would never endorse the attitude “just because a paper is peer reviewed that we should just assume it’s true”, so this model is more of a straw man.

But even if we don’t think peer review is an absolute mark of validity, I do think we appreciate peer review in a relative sense. While most peer reviewed findings may eventually be considered “false”, virtually ALL non-peer reviewed claims will eventually be considered false, as these claims have no standard at all they must meet. You probably won’t marry the woman your friend thinks is perfect for you, but it’s sure got a hell of a better chance than picking a name randomly out of a phone book.

 

Meanwhile, lest we lapse into anti-intellectualism and lose our awe at scientific thinkers



There is plenty of room between “all academia is useless” and the Professor on Gillian’s Island, who infallibly knew all, except how to get home