Japanese Researchers Faked Data in ISS Simulation
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
I've seen this happen with a friend of mine during his PhD, working in a climate science department doing simulations of cloud formations at the molecular level. Some 2-3 years into his research he kept bumping his head against a model that wasn't producing the data the research team expected, he spent almost a year trying to contact the author of the paper where said model was introduced, wanting to get all the dataset and initial conditions the author used so he could replicate it. The author is a quite prominent professor in the field, working at a major British university and simply wouldn't provide it to the research team, datasets had missing pieces, he deflected multiple asks for the initial parameters of the model, etc.
In the end my friend uncovered that it was most likely faked data and to prove that was another year of a battle between heads of departments which led him to a complete burnout and to lose trust in science. It was such a hardship to endure, I saw him mentally and physically suffering, and questioning said professor reputation was way above my friend's paygrade and research efforts, it was a political nightmare and after he finished the PhD (as fast as possible without exploring all of his research's goals) he just dropped the case completely.
Academic research seems to be in such a mess, perverse incentives all around and very few are willing or even able to question bad science.
Physics, aside from the major scandals of Ninov and Schon seem to be much cleaner.
Then there is the replication crisis and sokal and its spawn repeatedly showing a lack of rigor and scrutiny in certain fields.
People act shocked when there the public distrusts "science" so much. I don't think its surprising at all. People don't distrust science. They distrust scientists. And there is ample evidence to show they are just as flawed and fallible as anyone else
I will say, however, that we need to be very clear about making a distinction between bad methods and intentional malfeasance. Academic research generally involved a small team of researchers, at best. The code and amount of overall effort involved for what the earlier poster described is extremely intense. For better or worse, code QC simply doesn't exist in most departments for largely financial reasons.
You can generally expect that - most - efforts fall short somewhere, simply because the odds of not making a mistake or two in a 15K+ code base with one or two non-professional programmers are almost nil.
The hope is that another team in the future will tackle a similar task and, in the process, obtain results that are or are not consistent with what were previously published. Thankfully, if the question is interesting or impactful enough, and climate research certainly is, the aggregate body of evidence will eventually force out unintentionally bad research.
Of course, open data and code requirements facilitate this.
I don't think this is true at all to be honest. The world is drowning in false claims of product capabilities. See these flashlights/laser pens sold on Amazon for example[0][1]. Not to mention the complete absence of punishment for corporate decision makers who openly order their staff to violate the law.
There are a few professions where an individual is required to take on legal responsibility for ensuring the safety of a project or product. I think this approach generally targets the wrong participant. The onus should be on the company and the shareholders to ensure that the project/product is compliant. Shifting that burden onto an employee puts them in the position of choosing between safety and their own stability while doing nothing to curb the behaviour of the party incentivised to cut corners.
> There need to be some criminal liability for faking science. But it still needs to be in a ways so you don't get in trouble for doing bad and/or wrong studies.
I really don't see how criminal liability would help here. Incentivising scientists to reproduce and fact check the work of their peers seems like it would be cheaper for all but the most expensive studies and would be much more effective in actually revealing the people who are cheating.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q_0wxzClkg [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH3yMeA7HxQ
On the other hand, once found out, they typically own up, take responsibility and step down from the role.
It was her supervisor who committed suicide.