Scientific Misbehavior

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Scientific Misbehavior

• Jiunn-Ren Roan

Fall 2006
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What is scientific misbehavior?
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The scientific paper is a fraud in the sense that
it does give a totally misleading narrative of
the processes of thought that go into the making
of scientific discoveries.
-Sir Peter Medawar (1915-1987) Winner of the
Nobel Prize in Medicine 1960
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FFP Definition for misconduct given by US Office
of Science and Technology Policy

• Research misconduct is defined as fabrication,
  falsification, or plagiarism
• in proposing, performing, or reviewing research,
  or in reporting research
• results.
• Fabrication is making up data or results and
  recording or
• reporting them.
• Falsification is manipulating research
  materials, equipment, or
• processes, or changing or omitting data or
  results such that
• the research is not accurately represented in the
  research
• record.
• Plagiarism is the appropriation of another
  persons ideas,
• processes, results, or words without giving
  appropriate credit.
• Research misconduct does not include honest error
  or differences of
• opinion.
• http//www.ostp.gov/html/001207_3.html

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Scientists behaving badlyNature 435, 737 (2005)
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From Nature 435, 737 (2005)
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Some Recent Cases
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Yung Park (University of Cambridge and Korea
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)
published about 80 papers in 19 journals between
1995 and 2002.
8 papers between 1997 and 2001 are
plagiarized! 2 pairs of papers with significant
overlap in separate journals!
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• Anders Pape Møller (Pierre and Marie Curie
  University in Paris)
• Author of more than 450 articles and several
  books
• Many of his findings are incorporated into
  standard textbooks
• Its hardly possible to write a paper in
  behavioral ecology
• without making extensive citations of Anderss
  work
• Ian Jones (Memorial University of Newfoundland,
  Canada)

In 2001 Møller retracted a paper he published in
Oikos in 1998 after Rabøl wrote to Oikoss
editor-in-chief. Unsatisfied with what Møller
said (the measurements and analyses behind the
data...were flawed and misinterpreted), Rabøl
filed a formal complaint against Møller to Danish
Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD). Mølle
r was unable to provide original data.
DCSDs report There are very strong indications
that it must, at least in part, be fabricated
and what he said in his retraction is hardly
credible.
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• Luk Van Parijs (MIT, Caltech, Harvard)
• A rising star at MIT in the hot field of RNA
  interference
• I thought Luk was an excellent scientist...
• David Baltimore (Caltech president, Winner of
  Nobel Prize
• in Medicine 1975)

In 2004 graduate students and postdocs in
Van Parijs lab approached MIT administrators
with allegations of research misconduct saying
There were data that they could not verify the
origins of. MIT began examination of the 22
papers Van Parijs co-authored during his 5 years
at MIT. Caltech looked at 2 articles Van Parijs
published, including one co-authored by
Baltimore. Harvard scrutinize a paper by Van
Parijs. MIT fired Van Parijs.
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References 1. B. C. Martinson, M. S. Anderson,
and R. de Vries, Scientists behaving
badly. Nature 435, 737 (2005). 2. J. Giles,
Plagiarism in Cambridge physics lab prompts calls
for guidelines. Nature 427, 3 (2004). 3. A.
Abbott, Prolific ecologist vows to fight Danish
misconduct verdict. Nature 427, 381 (2004). 4.
G. Vogel, F. Proffitt, and R. Stone, Ecologists
roiled by misconduct case. Science 303, 606
(2004). 5. J. Couzin, MIT terminates researcher
over data fabrication. Science 310, 758 (2005).
6. R. Dalton, Universities scramble to assess
scope of falsified results. Nature 438, 7
(2005). 7. J. Couzin and M. Schirber, Fraud
upends oral cancer field, casting doubt on
prevention Trial. Science 311, 448 (2006).
8. E. Marris, Doctor admits Lancet study is
fiction. Nature 439, 248 (2006). 9. I.
Fuyuno and D. Cyranoski, Doubts over biochemists
data expose holes in Japanese fraud laws.
Nature 439, 514 (2006). 10. D. Normile, Tokyo
professor asked to redo experiments. Science
309, 1973 (2005). 11. I. Fuyuno, Further
accusations rock Japanese RNA laboratory.
Nature 440, 720 (2006).
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References (contd) 12. D. Normile, Panel
discredits findings of Tokyo University team.
Science 311, 595 (2006). 13. G. Vassart, J. V.
Broeck, F. Mendive, and T. V. Loy, The parable of
the mandarin. EMBO Rep. 6, 592 (2005). 14.
J. Couzin and K. Unger, Cleaning up the paper
trail. Science 312, 38 (2006). 15. B. E.
Barton, Six-word rule could turn description into
plagiarism. Nature 436, 24 (2005) 16. F.
Grinnell, Misconduct acceptable practices differ
by field. Nature 436, 776 (2005). 17. E.
Marris, Should journals police scientific
fraud? Nature 439, 520 (2006). 18. K.
Powell, Misconduct mayhem. Nature 441, 122
(2006). 19. J. Giles, Taking on the cheats.
Nature 435, 258 (2005).