Dutch Psychologist Faked Data In At Least 30 Scientific Papers 254
Attila Dimedici writes "A professor at Tilburg University has been caught using fake data in over 30 scientific papers. Diederik Stapel's latest paper claimed that eating meat made people anti-social and selfish. Other academics were skeptical of his findings and raised doubts about his research. Upon investigation it was discovered that he had invented the data he used in many of his papers and there is a question as to whether or not he used faked data in all of his published work."
This has happened before. (Score:2)
Yep none of his data can be trusted now. What a shame.
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Yes it is. The fact that his data cannot be trusted is a a shame is true. Because he may have a lot of real good and honest data. But because he has lied and made up some data means we need to go out and retake more data.
The scientific community shouldn't be apologetic to this type of behavior. They really need to crack down on this type of stuff. because it gives science a bad name. When a "Scientist" makes a "bold discovery" using made up data, is the reason why people don't trust science as much as th
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Yep none of his data can be trusted now. What a shame.
Surely, all of psychology is invalidated by one researcher faking his data. Psychology is clearly bunk. Next!
I think you missed the word "his". EvilBudMan didn't say that all of psychology was invalidated, just the work of one man. Try to read next time.
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"A top social scientist, Diederik Stapel, of Tilburg University, has been suspended after an investigation showed that he’s been fabricating his data for years"
In what other field can you publish made-up crap and become a top scientist? You might be able to get away with it in some fields for a few years as an unknown, but psychology is a field where papers are not making repeatable, scientific predictions.
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Psychology is rather broad. The committee that evaluatued Stapel's fraud did conclude that the science system failed for social psychology. In particular that research in social psychology is almost never replicated.
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"can't" and "does not happen" are not the same thing. Psychology tests are repeatable (consider the Milgram experiment which has been repeated quite a bit see: wikipedia [wikipedia.org] for example). But who's going to bother repeating the "messy workplace makes you racist" test? (yes, that's a rough and unfair summary of one of his papers)
-GiH
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You have no clue of science or the scientific method, do you?
"When one side finds something, and another finds proof to partially refute it, both have failed, and must start again,"
this is stupid, and a simpletons views of the process.
What is one side has a long history,a nd many many papers to base his conclusion on and the others doesn't? do we wipe out a whole branch of science?
It is never 2 papers, it is field of research picking out data to come to a conclusion, and sometime finding seem to contradict
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But, but, but (Score:2)
Why would all those other scientists do something that would threaten their grant money, when they could instead expand on his bullshit studies for pay? Anthony Watts, please explain!
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Hmm so they're all in on some kind of global conspiracy you say...interesting point.
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Irrelevant. The ethical ramifications of doing something for survival and doing it because it is easy/tastes good are completely different.
Then cannibalism without seasonings is OK, but with seasonings is bad?
Re:But, but, but (Score:5, Insightful)
I would recommend that instead of spouting this ignorance proving drivel, that you spend some of your time learning how most grant systems work.
I'll give you a hint, other scientists' grant money would not be threatened by blowing the lid off someone who is abusing the system. In fact, since that person would be excluded from future grants, the other scientists would be more likely to aquire grants in the future if they DID expose frauds.
-Rick
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...
Just a clue-in here: Anthony Watts is famous (among some circles) for his denouncement of climate change and one of his big reasons for denouncing it is his claim that the scientists are all colluding to steal grant money from credulous governments. But you did a good job of explaining the point of the guy you responded to, and why it's really Anthony Watts who's the credulous schmuck.
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Oh dear, I think I invoked Poe's law...
Kung Fu Panda? What does Po has to do with Vegans?
Wait...
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Hook, line, and sinker.
-Rick
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I want that job...
In charge of Science...
my first rule will be Science from here on end will always be written and spoken as "Science!"
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"Science ! I kill you ..."
Clearly (Score:2, Funny)
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If we look to the teachings of Freud he did all this to bone his mother. Clearly.
Yeah, I'm sure Freud had lots of reliable data to back that up.
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Published in Science (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Published in Science (Score:5, Informative)
Reviewers make sure that the experiment is described clearly and completely enough for it to be replicated, which is the best way to verify the dates authenticity/accuracy. They also strive to make sure that the methodology was sound, conclusions don't over reach what the data can support, and that the discussion was complete with regards to the pre-existing relevant literature. Those checks can find fabricated data, but aren't designed to necessarily.
Journals have no way to verify that you ran a trial, never mind that the data wasn't massaged or flat out replaced with fabricated data. That part is just taken on faith because it is the authors reputation that is on the line.
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The parent questioned the credibility of Science, not the efficacy of some peer review pencil whipping ritual. Peer review is a red herring you threw in for your own probably poor reasons. Astrologists peer review [astrologic...iation.com] each other. Peer review is one factor in credibility, and a small one at that.
The parent is correct; this is a black mark. If peer review is the only filter between the Science reader and fraud, as you seem to imply, then it is a well deserved black mark.
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Science is a process, it takes a lot of work and a long time to be able to sit back and say "ok, we've pretty-much got this figured out from the looks of it".
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I think the worst thing it that they are publishing psychology papers in Science. Aside from the most fundamental stimulus/response experiments (done decades ago) psychology depends on highly subjective observations and statistics that prove correlations but nothing about the underlying causations. It certainly doesn't lead to repeatable experiments.
A bigger mystery is how could tell the difference between a faked paper and a real one. They have about the same basis in fact.
Brett
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It would seem that controversy about inventing data would falsify this theory. As you are clearly fan of science, I would imagine this will be the last time you'll spread this opinion.
All in the name of science (Score:4, Insightful)
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Can we please stop calling psychology science?
It's more a science than the observational sciences.
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At least when you guys fully denied that climate change was even happening you were less pathetic than this shifting goalposts stance you guys take now when you can no longer deny it outright.
The only people I know of who ever claimed that the climate doesn't change are those who produced the 'Hockey Stick' with a nice flat global temperature until EVIL HUMANS started driving SUVs.
The rest of us are fully aware that the climate has changed far more dramatically in the past than it has in the last century.
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Also, nice job not using your screen name. What are you afraid of, exactly?
Sokal Affair (Score:5, Informative)
Obligatory reference to the Sokal Affair [wikipedia.org].
The Sokal affair, also known as the Sokal hoax,[1] was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the publication's intellectual rigor and, specifically, to learn if such a journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it (a) sounded good and (b) flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."
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It happened in other fields too. The troubling here is not that Its Highness Holy Tandem of Science Magazine and Nature Magazine faulted. The trouble is that we trust based on the word of the mouth.
The trust ends at the point where you consider reading the article or not. I trust Science, so I will start reading the paper. But once I started reading, it does not matter where it is published, in Science or in Journal of Theoretical Biology, I will apply the same BS detector (I do not have a special BS detect
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What makes this news troubling is that the researcher succeeded in being published in Science which was supposed to have a rigorous and effective peer-review process
Not really. The peer review process isn't set out to look for fraud. It is set out to look for bad data, poor experimental setups, poor interpretation of experiments, etc. The system assumes that the submitters are acting in good fatih. And this is a pretty good assumption: the vast majority of the time they are. The occasions where a problem occurs are few and far between. It would be a massive waste of resources and exhausting for all involved for peer review to try to actively look for signs of fraud.
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What makes this news troubling is that the researcher succeeded in being published in Science which was supposed to have a rigorous and effective peer-review process.
Peer review can't detect faked data, only bogus methodology.
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Is it a "kneejerk" reaction when people ridicule homeopathy, creationism, or politically motivated climate change deniers?
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Don't forget the repeated success of SciGen [mit.edu], an automatic computer science BS generator.
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But it's completely different.
One is an obviously ludicrous paper that anyone looking at objectively would dismiss.
The other is reasonable papers for which the raw data they are based on was fabricated.
The peer review process should reject the former, but not the later. The later will be found out when others take those papers and attempt to confirm them with their own work.
Sokal was showing that the journal in question was garbage in terms of what they would publish. This says almost nothing about the jour
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Not in the context of what you expect a journal to do in order to be called "peer reviewed".
Meat and caveman psych (Score:2)
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Why couldn't berry pickers pick in groups (cover a lot more area that way) which would turn it into a social experience and cut down on "two for me, one for the group"?
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And (Score:3)
> Diederik Stapel's latest paper claimed that eating meat made people anto-social and selfish.
And eating shellfish makes you ...
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Anto-pasta?
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And eating shellfish makes you ...
... goyim?
Psychology is a science. (Score:5, Insightful)
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What is definitely different about psychology is that experimentation on its subjects is far more difficult than most sciences. Psychologists can't generally keep their subjects in controlled environments or take them apart to see how they work. I'm sure a psychologist would tell you that observing and experimenting on members of one's own species, it is more difficult to remain objective than doing the same to lower animals or inanimate objects.
The Seven Sins of Pseudo-Science (Score:2)
Read and return:
A. A. Derksen (1993). The Seven Sins of Pseudo-Science. Journal for General Philosophy of Science 24 (1):17 - 42. "In this paper I will argue that a profile of the pseudo-sciences can be gained from the scientific pretensions of the pseudo-scientist. These pretensions provide two yardsticks which together take care of the charge of scientific prejudice that any suggested demarcation of pseudo-science has to face. To demonstrate that my analysis has teeth I will apply it to Freud and modern-d
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Ritalin is an addictive substance similar to Cocaine prescribed by Psychologists to make people more "Normal".
I respect the Neurologists who help my mother who has brain damage from falling out of a moving vehicle and who actually do try to make her more normal and fit into society in some fashion.
I have no respect for the others who's goal is to make a bunch of drug addicted users to fund their junk science.
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How about you cite something enlightening... If it's more advanced than the AC above suggested, you might change my mind, but I am seriously skeptical. I've read enough on sociology and political science to say that those fields are hopeless as far as hard science goes. Maybe there's something special about psychology that we've all missed...
How about the classics?
On obedience to authority figures [wikipedia.org]
On conditioning [about.com]
And, of course, the Pit of Despair. [wikipedia.org]
The only reason it's difficult to reproduce some psychology experiments is because of ethical concerns. There's nothing about the data being measured or the methodology used that is unscientific. I mean, I'm sure you can find bad experiments out there, but you can say that about any field, what you consider to be a hard science included. I'm an EE, and I've read some pretty bad papers in my fie
Re:Psychology is a science. (Score:4, Interesting)
"retraction" letters Science and Nature every week (Score:2)
To be fair, most of those authors are not intentionally deception like this guy. But the system encourages rushing sensational results into print (like arsenic-based life) before they can be verified elsewhere. "Nobel prize or bust!" P.S. This result has not been retracted, although many have asked for that.
Im not sure which is worse... (Score:3)
Perposterous (Score:2)
Dependencies (Score:2)
What about other papers that reference this one? We wouldn't exactly want to cascade delete, because the dependency might not be complete, but a system for reviewing all of the referring papers would be nice.
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If they relied on studies that were not repeated by another group then they weren't doing real science in the first place.
Dilbert (Score:2)
PHB: How many studies?
Dilbert: 87.
Uh oh, a scientist lied (Score:3)
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Guessing he's a vegan with an agenda. Probably make a good study case for a paper on meatless diets increasing bad decision making.
I mean really, they already made the huge mistake of giving up tasty animal flesh, someone should study what other bad decisions vegans make.
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Guessing he's a vegan with an agenda. Probably make a good study case for a paper on meatless diets increasing bad decision making.
I mean really, they already made the huge mistake of giving up tasty animal flesh, someone should study what other bad decisions vegans make.
Well, eating too much meat can constipate you. Then you go off to the john and spend a lot of time in there, which makes people think you don't want to spend time with them.
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Well, eating too much protein can constipate you.
FTFY
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Guessing he's a vegan with an agenda. Probably make a good study case for a paper on meatless diets increasing bad decision making.
I mean really, they already made the huge mistake of giving up tasty animal flesh, someone should study what other bad decisions vegans make.
Hey, let them eat grass and hug trees. We don't want to cause a meat shortage, do we?
Obligatory Far Side Cartoon (Score:2)
Mister (says a cowboy to a vegan across and Old West saloon counter), I said, can I buy you a chicken leg!
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No wonder people were suspicious. I don't know anyone who became anto-social after eating meat.
Perhaps it embiggened some gland which released some hormone into the blood. It's a perfectly cromulent theory.
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Yes we have all these social events centered around eating meat.
BBQ, Hawian Luau, Thanks Giving... Meat is something we like to eat and share with others.
If eating meat was anti-social then these traditions probably wouldn't last threw the generations.
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Then they told the boss of Stapel their findings.
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Clearly, Slashdot must be working on some psychological study on the psychological effects of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors on members a tech-oriented website community. Unfortunately, it seems that the researcher for this Slashdot study was not the one in the summary, so these grammar mistakes will still happen until we find the researcher and convince him to finish his study already.
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duck my sick
I'm not sure that is what he had in mind when he said "eating meat". Then again, he is Dutch...
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My question is, how many PhD's were given based in part on Thesis papers that included this fraud as supporting evidence of whatever conclusion the thesis gave.
The fraud has wider implications than just the journals and resulting conclusions that have been passed around as "truth"; we have no ability to revoke the PhD's that are fraudulent as a result.
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The committee evaluating Stapel's fraud has concluded that the PhD candidates had no knowledge of the fraud. They recommend to not revoke any titles and possibly have the university provide them with a letter stating they are innocent of any allegations.
The PhD-title as a mark of hard work is not invalid. The PhD-title as a mark of contribution to science probably is.
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The report goes into quite a lot of detail as to why these people didn't or couldn't check the raw data. Now, I'm not defending anything, but the explanations are that Stapel was quite an authoritarian mentor. These PhD-students learned about what it's like to be a scientist from him. They designed the studies together, and then Stapel conducted the research with assistants. In fact, he simply made up the data. The PhD-candidates were then provided with a dataset. As far as they knew, this is what getting a
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Political fraud is worse, it kills millions.