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Comment by AmVess | Hacker News Reader

He faked data in his graduate thesis, in applications for National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association grant, and in two published papers, so his behavior is part of a rather inexcusable pattern.

Doctorate work is supposed to be difficult, and that's part of why it is the pinnacle of academic achievement.

The only responsible course of action they could have taken was to strip him of his credentials. They didn't do that, so one must naturally question every single doctorate they hand out.

Perhaps it doesn't matter to some that they hand out PhD's in the bottom of Cracker Jack boxes, but this is a serious issue that shouldn't be taken lightly.

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> and that's part of why it is the pinnacle of academic achievement.

Absolutely not. A doctorate is an apprenticeship in research, and the thesis produced is your "final test" as an apprentice. It's supposed to be the start of your academic career, not its pinnacle.

Forgive me for being pedantic...but the "German" degree system (Bachelors, Masters, Ph.D.) inherits its tradition from the guild system. In this sense, a doctoral dissertation is the modern-day equivalent of a "masterpiece", the item you produce to prove to your peers that your are deserving of the title "Master". So you are wrong in that doctoral studies should be regarded as journeyman training, not an apprenticeship, but you are right in that a dissertation is only the start of ones career as a master.

That said, I think it's an unfortunate course of modern research that the prestige of a doctorate has eroded over time...

While you are right from a certain very point of view, a doctorate is really not the pinnacle in any sense of your life or your career. Nor is it meant to be. It is as the parent said the beginning of your career. The gateway into research. Really, there is only so much you can accomplish in a few years. However, hopefully it will provide you a solid foundation for many years of fruitful investigation. All to often however the research conducted can turn out to be a dead end after the PhD is completed. It is a start not the goal.

Perhaps more correctly a doctorate can be considered the pinnacle of your educational achievement.

The meaning of the word masterpiece has shifted over time. As you say it used to mean the work that proved to your peers that you were ready to enter the profession as an equal. So certainly competent, maybe even considerably above average since so it marked an important event in the artisan's life, but still an early work.

Now it is more synonymous with magnum opus, among the very best works of an entire career. Perhaps ironically, with respect specifically to the dissertation it is a common mistake to try to create a masterpiece in the modern sense rather than the classic sense. Probably because every field has legendary careers that were launched with the publication of a game changing dissertation. This is one thing that can cause ABD to drag on forever.

This. It's a baseline, not the pinnacle. But if you can't even make the baseline properly, are you really fit to have the degree?

Having falsified data doesn't prove outright that he's not qualified for the degree, but in my opinion it does prove that he doesn't deserve it. Unless there is absolutely no code or expectation of ethics in his chosen field, I don't see how this result makes sense.

Rewarding such a lack of integrity is a terrible precedent to set. We know this is not the only time people have done something like this, and now people who do this, have done it, or may do it can all see that they may not have as much to worry about since we're now in the practice of shrugging and looking away rather than enforcing any reasonable code of conduct... even the ones that already exist.

in my opinion it does prove that he doesn't deserve it

The question isn't whether he "deserves" a PhD - it's whether he earned it. He certainly couldn't earn it with a thesis that relied on fake data.

I think not. They awarded him a degree based on data he presented to them. They found out it was falsified, and in my opinion, that should invalidate the degree they awarded (and probably his grants).

I wonder if the NIH grant turns this into an FCA problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act; http://sstroudtrainingsresearch.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/res... (essentially, the False Claims Act makes it illegal to receive a payment from the government fraudulently or based on fraudulent statements).

I'm not a lawyer, but I would imagine that knowingly faking data in an application for a Federal grant is criminal fraud.

in terms of benefits you list - let's not forget a job at bristol-meyers.

somehow a phd faking data, and working at a big pharma company, seems like a good fit.

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