Brain Science Podcast discussion

"Do scientists cheat? If so, what are their motives? Are there just a few occasional offenders, or does the recent spate of scientific misconduct cases represent the tip of an iceberg? How much of a problem is subconscious cheating? How can we police ourselves so that fraud decreases, even as the pressures on scientists grow?"

http://dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail....

Science is a social system. What keeps scientists honest is continued scrutiny and competition with peers. Morality for the sake of morality doesn't go very far. Does competition enable cheating? Maybe a little, but the drive to find discrepancies in someone else's work more than offsets that. Neuroscience has many ideas and concepts not backed up by empiricism, nor can they be. The same is true for particle physics and cosmology. But psychology is rich with empiricism and treated as a soft science. Does that make sense? Empiricism means scrutiny, not morality.

Do scientists cheat? As a whole IMO science is reputable but, like everywhere, it has its share of cheaters and people who bend the truth in research for reputation, politics, and most of all, for securing funding. What's more is there often exists a culture of allowing such cheating. There was a great example of this in the NY Times magazine last Sunday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/mag...

But let's not forget the vast psuedo-science and alt-world of alternative institutions and disciplines that exist at the fringes of mainstream science and academia, a world of opportunists who prey on people with PhDs seeking recognition, status, and beefier CVs... as this NY Times article describes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/hea...

Two relatively recent episodes of "purposeful misinformation" in science are neuroscience-related: Jonah Lehrer and Marc Hauser. I used these examples in a blogpost about the responsibilities of a science writer. If anyone here is interested, I can provide the link. I do not know if I am allowed to post links here...

http://baldscientist.wordpress.com/20...

- here is the link instead of Googling

- I am so surprised that you are surprised. Like democracy science is the best system that we have, but currently it's loaded with SYSTEMATIC BIASES. grant bias, pal review rather than peer review, scientist going straight to the media before peer review, fake journals, fake conferences etc.
- Ginger mentioned how when she worked , people were busy writing grant applications for studies that they'd already done.
- Peer review is only the beginning of the process not the end. It's not just a little bit of science that doesn't stand the test of time, it's most of it, but it is a process that gets nearer and nearer to ultimate truths.
- Now actual DIRECT fraud is not that common, but you can find a lot through retraction-watch. For neuroscience they list about 15 retractions so far this year http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/...

Thanks for the link to Retraction Watch. That's an excellent service. It gives one hope, too.

@Stew: Yes, I completely see your point, but that's just it, all these examples is not what science is about (or rather, what science should not be about). Sadly, they do influence science and it is up to us real scientists to be alert about that and catch these things. This is one of the reasons why I blog; all people, whether they have formal scientific training or not, should at least have a working understanding of science and this is why I may sound surprised with all these cases, but what I really am is p***ed at those people who misrepresent science on purpose. As I said, for many, this is the only "science" that they'll ever get, and this is dangerous.

Let's go to an extreme example, Steve Jobs. There is no question that he was by any standard an extremely smart person, yet if memory serves, I read somewhere that part of the reason why his cancer got him was that he disregarded proven medical knowledge in favor of let's say, unproven approaches. So you see, if one of the most brilliant minds of our generation passed way before his time because of faulty "medical" knowledge, you can imagine the rest...

Great discussion guys! It might be slightly off-topic, but I think it is a very important topic. Scientists are not only human, but under our present "system" they are also under a lot of pressure to publish and to bring in research dollars. Neither of these pressures helps promote good science.

Besides fraud these pressure also diminish the free sharing of information that is needed for science to move forward.

Off topic? This issue cuts to the core of the veracity and trustworthiness of neuroscience research and subsequent metaphysical extrapolations about what makes us human. Very relevant, IMHO, to all discussions that your podcast stimulates.