Scientific fraud is rife: it's time to stand up for good science - The Guardian

The way we fund and publish science encourages fraud. A forum about academic misconduct aims to find practical solutions

  
Peer review happens behind closed doors, with anonymous reviews only seen by editors and authors. This means we have no idea how effective it is. Photo: Alamy

Science is broken. Psychology was rocked recently by stories of academics making up data, sometimes overshadowing whole careers. And it isn't the only discipline with problems - the current record for fraudulent papers is held by anaesthesiologist Yoshitaka Fujii, with 172 faked articles.

These scandals highlight deeper cultural problems in academia. Pressure to turn out lots of high-quality publications not only promotes extreme behaviours, it normalises the little things, like the selective publication of positive novel findings – which leads to "non-significant" but possibly true findings sitting unpublished on shelves, and a lack of much needed replication studies.

Why does this matter? Science is about furthering our collective knowledge, and it happens in increments. Successive generations of scientists build upon theoretical foundations set by their predecessors. If those foundations are made of sand, though, then time and money will be wasted in the pursuit of ideas that simply aren't right.

A recent paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that since 1973, nearly a thousand biomedical papers have been retracted because someone cheated the system. That's a massive 67% of all biomedical retractions. And the situation is getting worse - last year, Nature reported that the rise in retraction rates has overtaken the rise in the number of papers being published.

This is happening because the entire way that we go about funding, researching and publishing science is flawed. As Chris Chambers and Petroc Sumner point out, the reasons are numerous and interconnecting:

• Pressure to publish in "high impact" journals, at all research career levels;
• Universities treat successful grant applications as outputs, upon which continued careers depend;
• Statistical analyses are hard, and sometimes researchers get it wrong;
• Journals favour positive results over null findings, even though null findings from a well conducted study are just as informative;
• The way journal articles are assessed is inconsistent and secretive, and allows statistical errors to creep through.

Problems occur at all levels in the system, and we need to stop stubbornly arguing that "it's not that bad" or that talking about it somehow damages science. The damage has already been done – now we need to start fixing it.

Chambers and Sumner argue that replication is critical to keeping science honest, and they are right. Replication is a great way to verify the results of a given study, and its widespread adoption would, in time, act as a deterrent for dodgy practices. The nature of statistics means that sometimes positive findings arise by chance, and if replications aren't published, we can't be sure that a finding wasn't simply a statistical anomaly.

But replication isn't enough: we need to enact practical changes at all levels in the system. The scientific process must be as open to scrutiny as possible – that means enforcing study pre-registration to deter inappropriate post-hoc statistical testing, archiving and sharing data online for others to scrutinise, and incentivising these practices (such as guaranteeing publications, regardless of findings).

The peer-review process needs to be overhauled. Currently, it happens behind closed doors, with anonymous reviews only seen by journal editors and manuscript authors. This means we have no real idea how effective peer review is – though we know it can easily be gamed. Extreme examples of fake reviewers, fake journal articles, and even fake journals have been uncovered.

More often, shoddy science and dodgy statistics are accepted for publication by reviewers with inadequate levels of expertise. Peer review must become more transparent. Journals like Frontiers already use an interactive reviewing format, with reviewers and authors discussing a paper in a real-time, forum-like setting.

A simple next step would be to make this system open and viewable by everyone, while maintaining the anonymity of the reviewers themselves. This would allow young researchers to be critical of a senior academic's paper without fear of career suicide.

On 12 November, we are hosting a session on academic misconduct at SpotOn London, Nature's conference about all things science online.

The aim of the session is to find practical solutions to these problems that science faces. It will involve scientific researchers, journalists and journal editors. We've made some suggestions here, but we want more from you. What would you like to see discussed? Do you have any ideas, opinions or solutions?

We'll take the best points and air them at the session, so speak up now! Let's stop burying our heads in the sand and stand up for good science.

Pete Etchells is a biological psychologist and Suzi Gage is a translational epidemiology PhD student. Both are at the University of Bristol

Write My Essay, Please! - The Atlantic

Richard Gunderman

These days, students can hire online companies to do all their coursework, from papers to final exams. Is this ethical, or even legal?

A colleague tells the following story. A student in an undergraduate course recently submitted a truly first-rate term paper. In form, it was extremely well crafted, exhibiting a level of writing far beyond the typical undergraduate. In substance, it did a superb job of analyzing the text and offered a number of trenchant insights. It was clearly A-level work. There was only one problem: It markedly exceeded the quality of any other assignment the student had submitted all semester.

The instructor suspected foul play. She used several plagiarism-detection programs to determine if the student had cut and pasted text from another source, but each of these searches turned up nothing. So she decided to confront the student. She asked him point blank, "Did you write this, or did someone else write it for you?" The student immediately confessed. He had purchased the custom-written paper from an online essay-writing service.

The teacher believed this conduct represented a serious breach of academic ethics. The student had submitted an essay written by someone else as his own. He had not indicated that he hadn't written it. He hadn't given any credit to the essay's true author, whose name he did not know. And he was prepared to accept credit for both the essay and the course, despite the fact that he had not done the required work. The instructor severely admonished the student and gave him an F for the assignment.

But the roots of this problem go far deeper than an isolated case of ghostwriting. Essay writing has become a cottage industry premised on systematic flaunting of the most basic aims of higher education. The very fact that such services exist reflects a deep and widespread misunderstanding of why colleges and universities ask students to write essays in the first place.

These services have names such as WriteMyEssay.com, College-paper.org, and Essayontime.com. Bestessays.com claims that "70% of Students use Essay Writing service at least once [sic]" and boasts that all its writers have M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. Some of these Web sites offer testimonials from satisfied customers. One crows that he received a B+ on a ghostwritten history essay he submitted at a prestigious Ivy League institution. Another marvels at the scholarly standards and dedication of the essay writers, one of whom actually made two unsolicited revisions "absolutely free." Another customer pledges, "I will use your essay writing service again, and leave the essay writing to the professionals."

Such claims raise troubling questions. First, is the use of these services a form of plagiarism? Not exactly, because plagiarism implies stealing someone else's work and calling it one's own. In this case, assuming the essay-writing services are actually providing brand-new essays, no one else's work is being stolen without consent. It is being purchased. Nevertheless, the work is being used without attribution, and the students are claiming credit for work they never did. In short, the students are cheating, not learning.

Most essay-writing services evince little or no commitment to helping their customers understand their essay topics or hone their skills as thinkers and writers. They do not ask students to jot down preliminary ideas or submit rough drafts for editing and critique. They do not even encourage them to pose questions about the subject matter. Instead, the services do all the work for them, requesting only three things: the topic, the deadline, and the payment.

Second, how do these essays manage to slip past an instructor undetected? If most institutions knew their students were using essay-writing services, they would undoubtedly subject them to disciplinary proceedings. But the use of such services can be difficult to detect, unless the instructor makes the effort to compare the content and quality of each essay with other work the student has submitted over the course of a semester. But what if the entire semester's work has been ghostwritten?

Another disturbing question concerns the writers who produce such essays. Why would someone who has earned a master's degree or Ph.D. participate in such ethically an dubious activity? One answer may be that many academics find themselves in dead-end, part-time teaching positions that pay so poorly that they cannot make ends meet, and essay writing can be quite a lucrative business. For students who can wait up to 5 days, one service charges $20 per page, but for those who need the essay within 16 hours, the price quadruples to $80 per page. The "works cited" portion of essays can generate additional revenue. The same service provides one reference per page at no additional cost, but if students feel that they need more citations, the charge is $1 per source. Some struggling academics may also view ghostwriting as a form of vengeance on an educational system that saddled them with huge debts and few prospects for a viable academic career.

A far deeper question is this: Why aren't the students who use these services crafting their own essays to begin with? Some may simply be short on time and juggling competing commitments. As the cost of college continues to escalate, more and more students need to hold down part-time or even full-time jobs. Some are balancing school with marriage, parenthood, and other family responsibilities. The sales pitch of the essay-writing services reassures students that they are learning what they need to know and merely "lack the time needed to get it down on paper."

But more disturbingly, some students may question the very value of writing term papers. After all, they may ask, how many contemporary jobs really require such archaic forms of writing? And what is the point of doing research and formulating an argument when reams of information on virtually any topic are available at the click of a button on the Internet? Some may even doubt the relevance of the whole college experience.

Here is where the real problem lies. The idea of paying someone else to do your work for you has become increasingly commonplace in our broader culture, even in the realm of writing. It is well known that many actors, athletes, politicians, and businesspeople have contracted with uncredited ghostwriters to produce their memoirs for them. There is no law against it.

At the same time, higher education has been transformed into an industry, another sphere of economic activity where goods and services are bought and sold. By this logic, a student who pays a fair market price for it has earned whatever grade it brings. In fact, many institutions of higher education market not the challenges provided by their course of study, but the ease with which busy students can complete it in the midst of other daily responsibilities. The shrewd shopper, it seems, invests the least time and effort necessary to get the goods.

But when students outsource their essays to third-party services, they are devaluing the very degree programs they pursue. They are making a mockery of the very idea of education by putting its trappings - assignments, grades, and degrees - ahead of real learning.. They're cheating their instructors, who issue grades on the presumption that they represent a student's actual work. They are also cheating their classmates who do invest the time and effort necessary to earn their own grades.

But ultimately, students who use essay-writing services are cheating no one more than themselves. They are depriving themselves of the opportunity to ask, "What new insights and perspectives might I gain in the process of writing this paper?" instead of "How can I check this box and get my credential?"

Some might argue that even students who use essay services are forced to learn something in order to graduate. After all, when they sit down to take exams, those who have absorbed nothing at all will be exposed. That may be true in a traditional classroom, but these days, more and more degree programs are moving online -- and in response, more and more Internet-based test-taking services have sprung up. One version of "Take-my-exam.com" called AllHomework.net boasts, "Just let us know what the exam is about and we will find the right expert who will log in on your behalf, finish the exam within the time limit and get you a guaranteed grade for the exam itself."

And why stop with exams? Why not follow this path to its logical conclusion? If the entire course is online, why shouldn't students hire someone to enroll and complete all its requirements on their behalf? In fact, "Take-my-course.com" sites have already begun to appear. One site called My Math Genius promises to get customers a "guaranteed grade," with experts who will complete all assignments and "ace your final and midterm." And why should the trend toward vicarious performance stop with education? How long must we wait until some intrepid entrepreneur founds ""Do-my-job.com" or "Live-my-life.com?"

Meanwhile, the proliferation of essay-writing and exam-taking services is merely a symptom of a much deeper and more pervasive disorder. For that reason, the solution is not merely tougher laws and stiffer penalties. We need a series of probing discussions in classrooms all over the country, encouraging students to reflect on the real purpose of education: the new people and ideas a student encounters, and the enlightenment that comes when an assignment truly challenges a student's heart and mind. Perhaps an essay assignment is in order?

Study Shows Studies Show Nothing - Money Morning

Nick Hubble

If you’ve ever wondered how a study can show something that just can’t be true, or how studies can completely contradict each other, we’ve figured it out. With a little help of course. After today’s Daily Reckoning, I hope you never believe another ‘study’.

Our heartfelt congratulations go out to Mathgen. A mathematics journal provisionally accepted its paper for publication.

Wait, ‘its’ study?

Yes, that’s right. These days a computer program can write an academic paper about mathematics. Then get published in academic journals like ‘Advances in Pure Mathematics’. And you thought those computer programs dominating the stock market were smart!

No longer are your sons and daughters safe from having to compete with machines in the academic world. That’s another ‘safe’ career choice gone. So what was the paper Mathgen wrote about? Here’s the abstract, which describes it:

"Let ρ = A. Is it possible to extend isomorphisms? We show that D’ is stochastically orthogonal and trivially affine. In [10], the main result was the construction of p-Cardano, compactly Erdös, Weyl functions. This could shed important light on a conjecture of Conway-d’Alembert."

If you’re confused, that’s sort of the idea.

Only a mathematics academic could decipher that abstract, because it’s completely meaningless. You see, Mathgen creates papers by combining random nouns, verbs, numbers, symbols and the rest of it.

It spits out something that makes grammatical sense, not that you’d know it, but is completely devoid of any meaning. The formatting is said to be nice, though.

Once the paper is randomly generated and submitted for the academic journal’s review, the academics safeguarding the gates of science and knowledge read the paper and figure it must mean something.

That’s how the paper gets past the peer review process. The same process that keeps climate change science squeaky clean, by the way. Here’s what the anonymous peer reviewer wrote about Mathgen’s bizarre creation:

"For the abstract, I consider that the author can’t introduce the main idea and work of this topic specifically."

Maybe that’s because there is no main idea. No ideas at all, in fact.

Anyway, once the academics of the peer review process give the paper a once over and decide it’s fine to publish in their illustrious journal, the valuable and useful knowledge in the paper is disseminated around the academic world. That will probably never happen to Mathgen’s paper because the joke was exposed before the journal was finalised.

If all this makes you chuckle and shrug, consider that it’s the norm in academic publishing. A similar computer program managed to get an article about postmodernism published in a Duke University journal. And even when people run coherent scientific experiments (with real people) the results have a habit of being suspect too.

Many studies can’t seem to be replicated these days. Meaning, if you ran exactly the same experiment, you wouldn’t get results that confirm the study’s findings. According to one science journalist, 47 of the top 53 most important cancer studies can’t be replicated. They might be completely wrong, and yet we base modern research on the assumption they are right.

To be clear for any sceptics, the Mathgen paper is a true ‘gotcha’ moment. It wasn’t about the fact that a paper can be written by a clever computer program. It wasn’t about anything. It was complete gibberish. But it did show the fact that academic journals are…academic. Let’s hope nobody reads them.

Unfortunately, finance and economics journals actually do get mentioned in the real world. In fact, their conclusions often determine public policy. Politicians hurl studies at each other proving their opinion.

Luckily for economists, it’s very difficult to disprove an economics study. You never know the ‘counterfactual’ — what would have happened. But if maths and science are corrupted, you’d think economics is corrupted twice over.

So the next time you read ‘a study has shown,’ you can disregard the end of the sentence.

Regards,

Nick Hubble
Editor Money Morning