Fraud and deceit are a slippery slope
Story submitted by Bruce Webster
An article in the New York Times chronicles the descent of a sociologist into wholesale fraud. It is worth reading the whole article, because I believe it offers insight into some of the pressures, temptations, and self-rationalizations that many scientists struggle with.
Here is one key passage that will likely not surprise anyone here at WUWT (all emphasis in quoted text is mine):
Each case of research fraud that’s uncovered triggers a similar response from scientists. First disbelief, then anger, then a tendency to dismiss the perpetrator as one rotten egg in an otherwise-honest enterprise. But the scientific misconduct that has come to light in recent years suggests at the very least that the number of bad actors in science isn’t as insignificant as many would like to believe. And considered from a more cynical point of view, figures like Hwang and Hauser are not outliers so much as one end on a continuum of dishonest behaviors that extend from the cherry-picking of data to fit a chosen hypothesis — which many researchers admit is commonplace — to outright fabrication.
“Cherry-picking of data” is, of course, not an unknown topic in these parts. But here’s an even more intriguing passage:
Stapel did not deny that his deceit was driven by ambition. But it was more complicated than that, he told me. He insisted that he loved social psychology but had been frustrated by the messiness of experimental data, which rarely led to clear conclusions. His lifelong obsession with elegance and order, he said, led him to concoct sexy results that journals found attractive. “It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth,” he said. He described his behavior as an addiction that drove him to carry out acts of increasingly daring fraud, like a junkie seeking a bigger and better high.
And again:
What the public didn’t realize, he said, was that academic science, too, was becoming a business. “There are scarce resources, you need grants, you need money, there is competition,” he said. “Normal people go to the edge to get that money. Science is of course about discovery, about digging to discover the truth. But it is also communication, persuasion, marketing. I am a salesman. I am on the road. People are on the road with their talk. With the same talk. It’s like a circus.”
And finally how it all turned out:
…the universities unveiled their final report at a joint news conference: Stapel had committed fraud in at least 55 of his papers, as well as in 10 Ph.D. dissertations written by his students. The students were not culpable, even though their work was now tarnished. The field of psychology was indicted, too, with a finding that Stapel’s fraud went undetected for so long because of “a general culture of careless, selective and uncritical handling of research and data.” If Stapel was solely to blame for making stuff up, the report stated, his peers, journal editors and reviewers of the field’s top journals were to blame for letting him get away with it. The committees identified several practices as “sloppy science” — misuse of statistics, ignoring of data that do not conform to a desired hypothesis and the pursuit of a compelling story no matter how scientifically unsupported it may be.
A lesson for climate science. Be sure to read the whole thing. ..bruce..
Source of story : http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
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Sociologist =/= scientist.
Sociologists deal with statistics.
Science and statistics are not synonymous. Discovery of a numerical discrepancy is not science. Accounting for that discrepancy in a reproducible manner is science.
A little more here too:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/investigators-discover-50th-fake-study-disgraced-dutch-psychologist
Final paragraph in that article left me shaking my head.
His field was “Social Psychology.”
” Edohiguma says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:05 pm
Sociologist =/= scientist.
Sociologists deal with statistics.
Science and statistics are not synonymous. Discovery of a numerical discrepancy is not science. Accounting for that discrepancy in a reproducible manner is science.”
—————————————————————————————–
So wait your agreeing that climate scientists are also not scientists?
After all Climate Scientists deal with statistics.
Statistics and [bad] statistical analysis are at the heart of every claim by climate scientists and every computerized climate model.
Sounds awfully familiar …
The Age of Deceit is upon us all. Just ask your financial advisor hehehehe
Perfect cover for the juveniles of Climatology(TM)
Every one else does it.
So why are you picking on us?
He would have to consider himself a tad stiff, considering what is ‘done’ in AGW.
It is very simple what happened, he fed his ego which had an insatiable desire of fame.
Paraphrasing Robert Heinlein, “Any discipline with the word ‘science’ in the name, such as ‘social science’, isn’t one.”
See this a lot in Norway with all the social sciences we have here.
As long as their results support the leftist the funding will keep on comming?
One could might argue that the “Team” have ideological/political limits and aims for their results? Social Climate (non) science?
Glad you posted this Bruce, I was going to suggest it as well. Thanks. Here is another dealing with Medical Science:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
It appears that wherever there is money, charlatans will come running. Thank goodness for the Volunteer Defenders of Science in all of us.
Kent Clizbe says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:13 pm
His field was “Social Psychology.”
=========================
Shhhhh … you’re disturbing the mind numbing implied message.
Timely post from the NY Times….on how the Dean of Social and Behavioral “Science” had a “post modern relationship with truth”…and is now in contention for the “biggest con man in academic science”. In the process, this expert on “research ethics” burned 20 of his PhD post grad students and the university’s personality assessment investigation finding was that of an “arrogant bully” who “cozied up to students to manipulate them.”
Any similarity to behaviors in “other” branches of science, is purely coincidental.
Luckily, as an engineer, I get IMMEDIATE feedback when I stray from the “straight and narrow”, i.e. did you really predict that your new circuit design would disappear in a cloud of plasma and smoke ???
An old “sparky” (electrical engineer) joke; SURELY that new circuit design is WAY TOO YOUNG TO SMOKE…………
Reality, it’s the NEW DRUG, you should try it some time.
Cheers, Kevin
statistics ≠ science
modeling ≠ experiment
distorted data ≠ truth
unfalsifiable hypotheses ≠ science
unreproducible results ≠ science
faulty logic ≠ science
Stapel is the tip of the iceberg. We should be grateful for the few scientists who have neither sold out nor failed to speak out while Science was being perverted, prostituted, and postmodernized.
This is good. Get it into the public mind that scientific fraud does indeed happen, and maybe a few will start thinking. Climate science is rife with it – time to sort out the mess (there’ll be quite a few sweating about now, and I reckon a few having nightmares, too).
““There are scarce resources, you need grants, you need money, there is competition,” he said. “Normal people go to the edge to get that money. Science is of course about discovery, about digging to discover the truth. But it is also communication, persuasion, marketing. I am a salesman. I am on the road. People are on the road with their talk. With the same talk. It’s like a circus.”
————————-
It has been 25 years since I exited grad school in geophysics. Those who have never been directly involved in graduate level studies funded by grants would have a hard time comprehending how much salesmanship & questionable representation goes on. I haven’t seen anything that compares to it in the “real world”, in terms of doing what ever is necessary to bring in the money (grants). Academics are far from angels, but I can’t fault them too much in that they are doing what they have to do to survive – if they don’t have grant money, they essentially don’t have a job or income.
The real fault comes from the media , the politicians & others who have no idea what is really going on & how motivated by money (not big money, just survival grant money) academics are.
Until we get double blind funding of research, nothing will change
Oh to be a fly on the wall in Bristol.
Re: Ed Ohiguma (1805) and Lamont T (1815) who, I believe, misunderstood Ed.
Ed (clarified):
Genuine scientists use statistics.
Not all people that use statistics are scientists.
Therefore, use of statistics does not, per se, make a sociologist a genuine scientist.
The end.
(and, also, Ed did not support climatology pseudo-scientists even though they use statistics).
Lamont T adds the truth that Cult of Climatology scientists misuse statistics to fool people.
I just read that a few hours ago. I’m now also following Retraction Watch and their wide assortment of research problems. From simple plagiarism to reverse plagiarism to frauds… and an unknown liquid accidentally messing up a liver cell study.
It is very unfortunate but at least I can take heart that it could never happen in Australia. Definitely not in the School of Psychology at UWA. That is for sure.
His field was “Social Psychology.”
=========================
Shhhhh … you’re disturbing the mind numbing implied message.
=========================
Yeah. Imagine owning a Social Psychology degree on top of 100k in student loans. Not many options in the private sector but collecting insurance payments for consoling neglected middle class housewives.
I have no love for climate charlatains but at least some of them could survive in legitimate fields. Sorry host, meteorologist comes to mind.
(Page 6 of 9)
Stapel dumped most of the questionnaires into a trash bin outside campus. At home, using his own scale, he weighed a mug filled with M&M’s and sat down to simulate the experiment. While filling out the questionnaire, he ate the M&M’s at what he believed was a reasonable rate and then weighed the mug again to estimate the amount a subject could be expected to eat. He built the rest of the data set around that number. He told me he gave away some of the M&M stash and ate a lot of it himself. “I was the only subject in these studies,” he said.’
Yes, but what about the hard questions?
Did he eat the red ones last?
If so was he against Capitalism and on the Red end of the spectrum?
Was he in a dissociative state unable to discriminate between himself, [mug one], and the mug that stood before him?
Was he a Red one denier?
Did he believe the Moon landings were faked?
Stapel could always go to work at State Penn’s Department of Junk Science.
Ironic.
Regarding these scientists who are being labelelled as un-scientific…
The social scientists are the ones who are having the greatest success in predicting and controlling the world.
They took the ideals of science and applied them to various topics such as communication, persuasion, social trends, and so on. They figured out how society works. They figured out that a message repeated enough becomes believed. They figured out that people want to be correct, and “in the know.” They explored the topic of “values,” and so learned how to appeal to and manipulate values. They figured out the glue of society, our cultural hegemony, and have used that knowledge to unglue us.
I have heard it said that a very admirable goal in science is to predict accurately, and a higher goal is to control outcomes.
These educated elistist intellectuals grabbed the ideas of science and have used them to grab hold of our society.
Now, we are supposed to be “green” or else be evil outcasts. We are supposed to be sympathetic to the lazy and shiftless, and blame the hard-working, and the job-creators, for the plight of the lazy and shiftless. We are supposed to admire religious terrorists as they fight against our sins of being too powerful globally. We are supposed to accept Gosnell killing newborns and blame anything negative revealed in his trial as demonstrating the need for legal abortion. Oil has been a lead factor for improving the human condition, but for many oil and oil companies have been branded as a leading evil in our society. A sober, hard-working faithful father is an image of mockery, and vagabond drug-addled lothario is a hero.
They have used science to re-engineer society, and we have not even noticed them doing this. Maybe these sociologists are not scientists, but they sure have been successful. You can discount them if you want. I do not, and am very concerned about how to counter-act these forces for the future of my children.
The typical WUWT reader trucks with these re-creators of society. They sell us what we want. We want to shrug off religion – done – we now are all enlightened by science. We want casual se x – done. We all now have all the se x ed we want in school, we have govt-financed treatment of STDs, and soon enough will have govt funed abortion, just as in the communist bloc. WE don;t want to have to fulfill the arduous task of parenting our children – done – their errant development is now labelled as a psychaitric illness, and there is a solid social taboo against “blame the mother.”
We have all benefitted from these social scientists, social psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists. Let’s not turn our back on them now.