"There is pressure to publish as scientists [...] There are labs that are run by big egos who might say to a young researcher, “Why did your experiment fail? I will hire someone else who will make it work [...] The graduate students and the postdocs might be the ones photoshopping, but who is responsible for the atmosphere and the integrity of the lab? That’s the professor" - @ElisabethBik
We have reached a point in academia that there is now a cost associated with failure - career, personal etc. This incentivizes fraud and is anti-thetical to science. Ironically, the tenure system was invented precisely to shield scientists from these costs and promote science.
@failedLyndonLaRouchite@erinnacland@ElisabethBik@academicchatter As it says ... tenure is created for academic freedom. I count the freedom to explore high-stakes blue skies research without the threat of personal costs an important part of academic freedom as it pertains to science.
@erinnacland@ElisabethBik@academicchatter I really appreciate that quote: have witnessed 3 cases of scientific fraud being discovered (1 after publication, 2 caught before), and in all cases PhD/postdocs came from labs where PI did not take kindly to data that opposed their pet theory. It doesn't make the data fabrication right, but I wish there was more research done into the environment that creates it, not letting the PIs get away scot-free in these situations.
They are all to blame. The PI for creating a toxic environment and failing to provide training and oversight and the ECRs for performing acts they know are improper.
I don't recognise any of those scenarios. Have worked with a few massive egos, however they would never have faked anything and never have pressured anyone else to. This was in Forensic Science and a University.
Am aware of pressure in some medical science environments to get publications out and am aware that there has been some fraudulent publication there.
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