Tl;dr: imagine the success and continuity of not only your career but the careers of your employees had a significant element of random chance involved. Welcome to research.
Now former scientist here. I see the typical “people would do this anyways” comments but I’d wager they don’t understand what it’s like to work in science and academia. It’s publish or perish. In the United States, it’s an absolute capitalist meat grinder and it can be brutal.
As a lead researcher, you are dependent on securing grant money not only to keep your job, but to keep the jobs of your co-workers and the very lab itself afloat.
How do you secure grants? By showing you have the experience and ability to complete the research.
How do you show you have the required experience and ability? By your lab’s record of publishing the results of successful research.
What is successful research? In an ideal world, it would be what was found at the end of an investigation, regardless of if it disproves the null hypothesis or not. In reality, it’s the results of research that have further application, either in industry or that disprove the null hypothesis and act as a step to get you further related grants.
What happens when an investigation flounders? So you didn’t disprove the null hypothesis. In an ideal world, you publish a paper explaining what happened and everyone knows what not to do in the future. In reality, it’s basically unpublishable as journals want what will make them money. Your lab now has the research equivalent of a gap in your resume. You continue with other research and hope it is publishable. If your lab has a streak of bad luck and multiple projects crap out, now it’s harder to secure grants. The downward spiral begins.
Is what this researcher did wrong? Absolutely, but I get it. I 100% get it.
We need serious reform that removes the profit motive. A functional research system would better catch fabricated results before they’re published. It would alleviate the pressures that drive good people to do bad things in the pursuit of doing further good. It would actually enhance scientific discovery as ALL results would be published and without parasitic publishers as unnecessary middlemen.
From the outside it’s not obvious how many variables influence scientific research that have absolutely nothing to do with science or the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
Being scientifically literate is insufficient. We must also be highly sceptical and apply critical thinking to the work of other scientists, particularly when large sums of money are involved and the inevitable conflicts of interest that entails.
People with money are able to fund research but they will never be scientists because they are only interested in what is true to the extent it will make money.
But being caught in a lie would destroy your clout instantly. If they’re competing for clout there would be a big incentive to prove the competition wrong.
There is something to that, in that money gained will be kept (unless lawsuits can claw it away for fraud), but with both scenarios the ethically lacking individual would still have enjoyed the time until they were caught and future money/clout would both be hampered.
As for competition, that sounds the same to me. There is already competition for positions and grants, etc.
That is absolute nonsense. Where does the idea that the nastiest expression of desires is the truest come from? It’s a completely absurd and unverifiable idea.
People do stuff, putting people in power over others tends to result in the people doing worse stuff. The variable we can tweak here is the power.
Power gives people the freedom to act as they choose, and they choose a lot of nastiness. Does it not make sense that unconstrained choices represent who a person truly is?
I mean, science doesn’t pay for itself. You need libraries, you need universities, you need equipment. Only a mathematician can get by with a $5 black board and stack of chalk, and even then not very well.
Money corrupts absolutely everything: science, politics, people…
Tl;dr: imagine the success and continuity of not only your career but the careers of your employees had a significant element of random chance involved. Welcome to research.
Now former scientist here. I see the typical “people would do this anyways” comments but I’d wager they don’t understand what it’s like to work in science and academia. It’s publish or perish. In the United States, it’s an absolute capitalist meat grinder and it can be brutal.
As a lead researcher, you are dependent on securing grant money not only to keep your job, but to keep the jobs of your co-workers and the very lab itself afloat.
How do you secure grants? By showing you have the experience and ability to complete the research.
How do you show you have the required experience and ability? By your lab’s record of publishing the results of successful research.
What is successful research? In an ideal world, it would be what was found at the end of an investigation, regardless of if it disproves the null hypothesis or not. In reality, it’s the results of research that have further application, either in industry or that disprove the null hypothesis and act as a step to get you further related grants.
What happens when an investigation flounders? So you didn’t disprove the null hypothesis. In an ideal world, you publish a paper explaining what happened and everyone knows what not to do in the future. In reality, it’s basically unpublishable as journals want what will make them money. Your lab now has the research equivalent of a gap in your resume. You continue with other research and hope it is publishable. If your lab has a streak of bad luck and multiple projects crap out, now it’s harder to secure grants. The downward spiral begins.
Is what this researcher did wrong? Absolutely, but I get it. I 100% get it.
We need serious reform that removes the profit motive. A functional research system would better catch fabricated results before they’re published. It would alleviate the pressures that drive good people to do bad things in the pursuit of doing further good. It would actually enhance scientific discovery as ALL results would be published and without parasitic publishers as unnecessary middlemen.
I don’t fully understand the field of course, but I appreciate this comment FWIW.
From the outside it’s not obvious how many variables influence scientific research that have absolutely nothing to do with science or the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
Being scientifically literate is insufficient. We must also be highly sceptical and apply critical thinking to the work of other scientists, particularly when large sums of money are involved and the inevitable conflicts of interest that entails.
People with money are able to fund research but they will never be scientists because they are only interested in what is true to the extent it will make money.
This kind of behavior would still exist without money. People would still fake stuff for the clout.
Sure but money motivates more people than clout alone
That’s only because money exists. If you removed money from the equation, clout would be the new currency that everyone lies and cheats for.
Thats entirely hypothetical and unprovable
OK, so money corrupts, money exists, everything is corrupt. What’s the point of pointing that out?
But being caught in a lie would destroy your clout instantly. If they’re competing for clout there would be a big incentive to prove the competition wrong.
There is something to that, in that money gained will be kept (unless lawsuits can claw it away for fraud), but with both scenarios the ethically lacking individual would still have enjoyed the time until they were caught and future money/clout would both be hampered.
As for competition, that sounds the same to me. There is already competition for positions and grants, etc.
Nah. Money is simply the mechanism that reveals true character.
That is absolute nonsense. Where does the idea that the nastiest expression of desires is the truest come from? It’s a completely absurd and unverifiable idea.
People do stuff, putting people in power over others tends to result in the people doing worse stuff. The variable we can tweak here is the power.
Power gives people the freedom to act as they choose, and they choose a lot of nastiness. Does it not make sense that unconstrained choices represent who a person truly is?
Wow, that’s a crock of shit, classist take
I mean, science doesn’t pay for itself. You need libraries, you need universities, you need equipment. Only a mathematician can get by with a $5 black board and stack of chalk, and even then not very well.
And he needs a calculator, because without one he isn’t going to be very fast with his research.