On the other hand, if your name is on an article, you must do your homework and know if what you are signing is realistic or not.
And there are plenty of cases where you won't notice anything is off unless you actually examine the raw data in detail, which isn't really realistic as it's an enormous amount of effort and duplicated work. There are certainly cases where co-authors should notice that something is off about the data. But there are plenty of situations where there is no reason at all to suspect a problem with the data, and where there is no way to know that someone is simply providing false data.
“Don’t put your name on something you don’t understand” is a good rule to live by. All the authors share responsibility. We cannot accept credit when all works well and reject blame when it does not.
> But there are plenty of situations where there is no reason at all to suspect a problem with the data, and where there is no way to know that someone is simply providing false data.
Publishing an article with better results is definitely the best thing to do then. Short of that, publishing a letter to the editor sharing concerns is a good way of putting your doubts on record. Just removing your name looks too much like washing your hands of the whole thing.
Definitely not the case when you're an undergraduate trying to get your foot in the door with your first paper.
In the US, afaik, the purpose of undergraduate work is to learn the material of the field. A Phd program then teaches the student how to do research in a field and the student goes on to do actual research only then.
An undergraduate would do a research paper as independent study or a special department class I think. With the provision that advisor is doing a lot of hand holding.
So handing fake data to someone's whose effectively a complete newby and letting them process it and publish it as their first achievement, is really despicable as the article seems to describe.
The original paper was published while the first author was an undergraduate, btw, so they probably didn't have a complete grasp of the issue.