[W:542] Star Harvard business professor stripped of tenure, fired for manipulating data in studies on dishonesty

[Chomsky]

I acknowledged that in my first response.


But it's the most significant step, and what most people think of, and are referring to, when they say, "peer reviewed." A "peer-reviewed" journal's reputation depends on the quality of its "peer review" process.

The bolded is not at all my personal characterization, nor my understanding of how it is perceived in academic/professional communities. And I spent time working in STEM.

When something novel & of interest is published, researchers in the affected community try to recreate it, and in turn publish their findings for further review to continue. This occurs in many iterations.

Peer review is the review of your colleagues, basically everyone in your community. You open the findings up - through publication - for peer review.

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It's a mess right now, the whole publishing world is in turmoil and transition and hasn't caught up with interdisciplinary digital world, which is only going to get further complicated by ai.

That's a very interesting point.

But I'd offer electronic distribution puts more eyes on a paper, and results in more exposure providing more "review".

 

[TamleeB]

This is like people who refuse to fly because they heard a plane crashed in Thailand once.

I disagree. But, if that analogy works for you. Go for it!

 

[TamleeB]

Well, there's no such thing as instantaneous, so you might have to get used to some amount of finite time difference. Without perfect knowledge or even knowledge of the future, some amount of deliberate fraud may get through. Though it will usually be found out sooner or later.

One can hope for it to actually be found “sooner”.

 

[Napoleon]

Yes.

And I too want to make sure I understand exactly what you’re saying here. My understanding is that if this ever happens, we need to ignore the latest science and discredit academia?

What you should be doing is taking the publications in such journals with a huge grain of salt. You can’t know what “the latest science” is when the journals which are supposed to be the authority on that are failing to weed out the bullshit.

 

[Ikari]

One can hope for it to actually be found “sooner”.

One can, and depending on the relevance or activity within the particular subject one is publishing in, it may. Schön's deception got picked up relatively fast.

 

[Ikari]

What you should be doing is taking the publications in such journals with a huge grain of salt. You can’t know what “the latest science” is when the journals which are supposed to be the authority on that are failing to weed out the bullshit.

How many published articles turn out to be fraudulent?

 

[SMTA]

That's right, none of us have all the answers. And it is possible that someone uses deliberate fraud to push through even a peer reviewed system to gain a publication. The peer review process can't detect any and all instances of deliberate fraud as we lack perfect knowledge. However, the scientific process on whole will likely catch that fraud sooner or later.

The advent of AI will literally eliminate the effectiveness of most peer review.
Most peer review, depending upon the subject, involve plagiarism or data fraud.
Data fraud is extremely difficult to prove, and is dependent upon the method of data gathering, accurate data analysis, and the subsequent data presentation methodology.

 

[Ikari]

The advent of AI will literally eliminate the effectiveness of most peer review.
Most peer review, depending upon the subject, involve plagiarism or data fraud.
Data fraud is extremely difficult to prove, and is dependent upon the method of data gathering, accurate data analysis, and the subsequent data presentation methodology.

"Most"? What's that percentage?

 

[Napoleon]

How many published articles turn out to be fraudulent?

“So when we're looking at the numbers of papers that are identified with our indicators, the percentage was in 2020 at 28% of all biomedical publications. That comes to over 300,000 in the biomedical field alone. Now, if you consider that all of science is maybe roughly double that, then you can sort of roughly estimate that there may be a half million fake papers published per year. And that is a shocking number.”

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Would you “trust” Francesca Gino to give accurate information?

I don't know her, I'm not an expert in her field. It appears her deception was caught. It is weird to see trumpers getting excited about someone getting found out for their deceptions, lies. Is this a change of heart for trumpers, or just another huge example of their hypocrisy?

 

[SMTA]

"Most"? What's that percentage?

SWAG.
3~7% if I had to guess.
IMHO, most academics are very serious about their work.

 

[Cope]

How are the people reviewing supposed to know the future, or to detect every case of deliberate fraud? Does peer review require that people recreate each experiment being written about to confirm the results themselves?

In depth no, but how else would they confirm or deny a study if they don't attempt some sort of check?

lol

I don't think you folk really think about this, I think you have a zeal to go after peer review because there is a political motivation to discredit science and academia. This Professor got caught, it shows that the scientific process works.

 

[Ikari]

“So when we're looking at the numbers of papers that are identified with our indicators, the percentage was in 2020 at 28% of all biomedical publications. That comes to over 300,000 in the biomedical field alone. Now, if you consider that all of science is maybe roughly double that, then you can sort of roughly estimate that there may be a half million fake papers published per year. And that is a shocking number.”

So what are those indicators?

In the end it seems that they didn't confirm 28% are fraudulent, just that they had whatever indicators they may have. And then there's supposition that the percentage in one field is the same as in all other fields.

It's interesting, and worth investigating, but that's hardly a conclusive result.

 

[ataraxia]

Would you “trust” Francesca Gino to give accurate information?

Is the point of this thread about Francesca Gino, or a broader point to discredit Harvard and science in general?

Because who cares about Francesca Gino? There are many like her in academia.

I would still recommend getting a measles vaccine though.

 

[ataraxia]

What you should be doing is taking the publications in such journals with a huge grain of salt. You can’t know what “the latest science” is when the journals which are supposed to be the authority on that are failing to weed out the bullshit.

I see. So the moral of the story is: any science that we don't like we can ignore. Got it.

 

[Chomsky]

The peer review process must be finalized before any article is published in PNAS which is where she published her fraud.

You're mischaracterizing this, by attempting to conflate the preliminary pre-publication review with the greater more definitive post-publication review that occurs within the community.

If you'd like to fault the the publication for not performing a rigorous-enough pre-publication review, fine. But even that's may not be fully justified, as the pre-publication review is only to open it up to the more through review that takes place in the greater community.

Many papers make it to publishing, only to fail - for various reasons - upon community adaptation. Exploring the unknown is a process of trial & error.

What makes these studies egregious, is the error contained appears to be fraudulent. Otherwise, papers fail or are amended all the time - and its simply part of the process.

 

[Taylor]

The bolded is not at all my personal characterization, nor my understanding of how it is perceived in academic/professional communities. And I spent time working in STEM.

When something novel & of interest is published, researchers in the affected community try to recreate it, and in turn publish their findings for further review to continue. This occurs in many iterations.

Peer review is the review of your colleagues, basically everyone in your community. You open the findings up - through publication - for peer review.

Having worked for a couple of decades in research at a major university, I've never come across a single person who believed that peer review "really began" after publication.

Truth be told, science is often so incredibly specialized these days, that you may only have a handful of "peers" with the requisite knowledge to adequately provide a decent review.

It's certainly not uncommon for researchers to figure out who their "anonymous" reviewers are simply by the questions they ask the issues they raise. They're the same ones that come up at conferences and visiting lectures. At times it gets pretty political.

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But yes, the process continues. In fact, journals have "letter to the editor" type sections where you can openly question another scholar's research. Sometimes this goes back and forth over the span of years. It may be two eminent scholars arguing for the future direction of the entire field.

 

[TamleeB]

One can, and depending on the relevance or activity within the particular subject one is publishing in, it may. Schön's deception got picked up relatively fast.

Sadly it took years for this deception to be addressed.

 

[Napoleon]

I see. So the moral of the story is: any science that we don't like we can ignore. Got it.

The moral of the story is not to rely on scientific journals as an unimpeachable authority for anything.

 

[Ikari]

Sadly it took years for this deception to be addressed.

True, it would have been nice if it were found more quickly. But it was found and now this processor is completely embarrassed and discredited. So the system did eventually overturn the fraud.

 

[TamleeB]

Is the point of this thread about Francesca Gino, or a broader point to discredit Harvard and science in general?

Because who cares about Francesca Gino? There are many like her in academia.

I would still recommend getting a measles vaccine though.

The thread is about Harvard and Francesca Gino. Therefore, discussing them both seems relevant. If you struggle with following along then that is totally on you. There is plenty of time if you want to catch up.

 

[TamleeB]

True, it would have been nice if it were found more quickly. But it was found and now this processor is completely embarrassed and discredited. So the system did eventually overturn the fraud.

On that you are correct.

 

[Ikari]

The moral of the story is not to rely on scientific journals as an unimpeachable authority for anything.

Scientists don't.

 

[Chomsky]

Yes, she did indeed commit fraud. And it was not fast, in fact just the opposite was true. Hopefully, that will change in the future.

In general, I don't think it will.

Ten years might be a bit much, but the process of peer review resulting in adoption usually takes quite a few years. It's the nature of the beast.

 

[ataraxia]

The moral of the story is not to rely on scientific journals as an unimpeachable authority for anything.

No- the MAGA crowd is discrediting a century and a half of climate change science and a century of safety and efficacy of vaccines based on this mindset, and the latest recommendations from physicians and the CDC during a deadly pandemic when all our lives were in danger. This mindset is becoming license to ignore stuff you don't like politically. Or what oligarchs spend money on to sow confusion among the scientifically illiterate, for their own shortsighted greed and interests.

I would still take the latest science seriously- even if it is changing all the time. Yours is a dangerous mindset. Potentially deadly, in fact.

Science is the best we have, even if there is an occasional woman in the business school you find that may have fudged her data and was found later.