November 20, 2011
Journal Editors' Reactions to Word of Plagiarism? Largely Silence - THE CHRONICLE of HIGHER EDUCATION
November 17, 2011
Breaking news: Prolific Dutch heart researcher fired over misconduct concerns - Retraction Watch
"Erasmus University in Rotterdam has sacked a professor in cardio-vascular medicine for damaging the institution’s academic integrity and for ‘scientific misconduct’, the NRC reports on Thursday.
The professor is accused of faking academic data and compromising patient trust, the paper says. In particular, he failed to obtain patient consent for carrying out research and recorded results ‘which cannot be resolved to patient information,’ the university said.
Don Poldermans has spent years researching the risk of complications during cardio-vascular surgery and has some 500 publications to his name.
A spokesman for Poldermans told the paper he admitted not keeping to research protocols but denied faking data."
"We’ll write a note to the university and ask them, is this paper fraudulent or not. When this happens you have to consider every paper suspect."
"Erasmus MC dismissed Prof. D. Poldermans on 16 November because of violation of academic integrity. Research carried out under his leadership was not always performed in accordance with current scientific standards.
An inquiry committee on Academic Integrity concluded that the professor was careless in collecting the data for his research. In one study it was found that he used patient data without written permission, used fictitious data and that two reports were submitted to conferences which included knowingly unreliable data.
Regret
The professor agrees with the committee’s conclusions and expressed his regret for his actions. Poldermans feels that as experienced researcher he should have been more accurate but states that his actions were unintentional.
Action
The study that gave rise to the inquiry committee having to take action was the health of patients who had to undergo surgery. The aim of the study was to identify which factors can contribute to being able to better estimate the risks of complications. There were no medical implications for the patients who took part in the studies.
Apologize
Erasmus MC will, however, endeavor to inform the patients concerned personally and apologize to them."
November 3, 2011
Real scientists never report fraud
The Fraud Who Fooled (Almost) Everyone - THE CHRONICLE of HIGHER EDUCATION
- Pretending to help fellow researchers
- Making it seem plausible
- Mixing fact and fiction
- Intimidation
- Controlling the data
November 1, 2011
Diederik Stapel: The Lying Dutchman - The Washington Post
That paper, “Coping With Chaos: How Disordered Contexts Promote Stereotypying and Discrimination,” claimed that people were more likely to be prejudicial toward others when in the presence of litter, a broken sidewalk, an abandoned bicycle, etc.
The problem is, there may not have been any experiment upon which this conclusion was based. Stapel apparently invented his raw data and then handed it to his graduate students to intepret. Read the story at Science Insider:
“The panel reported that he would discuss in detail experimental designs, including drafting questionnaires, and would then claim to conduct the experiments at high schools and universities with which he had special arrangements. The experiments, however, never took place, the universities concluded. Stapel made up the data sets, which he then gave the student or collaborator for analysis, investigators allege. In other instances, the report says, he told colleagues that he had an old data set lying around that he hadn’t yet had a chance to analyze. When Stapel did conduct actual experiments, the committee found evidence that he manipulated the results.
“Many of Stapel’s students graduated without having ever run an experiment, the report says. Stapel told them that their time was better spent analyzing data and writing. The commission writes that Stapel was ’lord of the data’ in his collaborations. It says colleagues or students who asked to see raw data were given excuses or even threatened and insulted.”
It’s not known yet if the Science paper in April was one of the ones with fabricated data, but Science spokeswoman Kathy Wren said this afternoon, “It seems highly likely that this Science paper is involved.” She said the Dutch investigators alerted the journal in September that the April paper might be tainted.
The journal’s editor-in-chief, Bruce Alberts, issued a brief statement today, called an “Editorial Expression of Concern,” in which he noted the findings released Monday by the Dutch investigators. He said the report “indicates that the extent of the fraud by Stapel is substantial.”
His students were victims, too — and ultimately realized that they were being taken for a ride. According to Science Insider, 14 of 21 of the theses published by Stapel’s students were affected by the tainted data.
Should the journal Science have known that this was a bogus paper? There’s a peer review process, but it’s one that isn’t designed to detect outright, bald-faced fraud.
Wren said today, “Science is not an investigative body, and so if a scientist is intentionally trying to deceive, the peer review system is not really set up to investigate that sort of thing.”
[Good report here by Ewen Callaway of Nature, republished by Scientific American’s website. Describes Stapel as a wunderkind. The investigative report has a statement from Stapel: “I have made mistakes, but I was and am honestly concerned with the field of social psychology. I therefore regret the pain that I have caused others.”]
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