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US scientists significantly more likely to publish fake research

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posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 12:54 PM
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US scientists significantly more likely to publish fake research


www.physorg.com

The study author searched the PubMed database for every scientific research paper that had been withdrawn—and therefore officially expunged from the public record—between 2000 and 2010.

A total of 788 papers had been retracted during this period. Around three quarters of these papers had been withdrawn because of a serious error (545); the rest of the retractions were attributed to fraud (data fabrication or falsification).

The highest number of retracted papers were written by US
(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.cnbc.com



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 12:54 PM
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This is not surprising. Science in the US is heavily influenced by corporate and political interests and scientists seeking fame, grant cash and nice acedemic positions have a significant incentive to either do shoddy work or to simply to commit fraud.

Obviously the most recent example is the sham science surrounding global warming, which has been proven to be poorly conducted, based on faulty data and agenda driven. Regardless of your view on global warming, there is no dispute that much of the science was poorly conducted.

There are a number of serious issues here. Firstly, sham science degrades the credibility of the subject being studied, making the claim of the scientist seem false, when in fact it might be. In other words, quality science could well prove the same tenent that the sham science made, but the sham discounts the quality work. "I've heard that BS before and its bogus". That can negatively impact important areas of further research and public policy.

Second, what are the ramifications of publishing this rubbish? Apparently none, since there are many repeat offenders on the list. Folks who are either incompetent, have an agenda or are simply frauds. There is clearly insufficient vetting as to the track record of some of these folks.

What should the penalty for commiting scientific fraud be? At a minimum there should be a sanction from publishing additional scientific work to the extent that fraud can be proven or the scientific methods used clearly inadequate.

Finally, most people tend to believe that science is a quantitative discipline (at least most sciences). This poorly conducted work and fraud places hard sciences in the same camp as soft sciences like economics.

There is a problem here and that problem is how scientists are compensated, what value can be generated by publishing faulty material, the level of validation, verification of work of significant impact and the creation of celebrities out of scientists who, it would appear are doing little more than writing a paper out of Wikipedia.

There is a "study" out today which states that 20% of Americans are mentally ill. Exactly how is that determined? Who paid for the research? How can something by its very nature be subjective be pushed out as science?

What are the odds that either the mental health industry or big pharma funded in part, either directly or through shell organizations this work? Pretty slim.

www.physorg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)
edit on 19-11-2010 by dolphinfan because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:00 PM
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reply to post by dolphinfan
 


the problem is, people think our 'science' is valid, but the truth is, in the past if you went against the common beliefs of the majority(the church mostly), you were tortured until you recanted, or you were burned at the stake for being a heritic...

these days they just cut off all your funding and discredit you.

the reality is, any new theories that dispute the mainstream thougts of modern science are frowned upon and more often than not, never pass the peer review stage that is required for publication

so in essence, I would agree that false data is being presented to the world at large in conformation with what everyone else tells us to believe... and if the data is off a little bit,all they do is tweek the theory a little to compensate for the inconsitancies.... thats where dark matter and dark energy came from.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:01 PM
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You have said it OP, biased and controlled by the corporate interests, new drugs, new ailments, new "research" that show how you need to give them more money, or consume more or less of something, to deviate consumer trends towards some new health fad that is everything but healthy.

It comes as no surprise, that the new research is sometimes embellished creatively based on assumptions.

This is a dark time, who do we trust? if the ones that where supposed to take care of me are my secret enemies and just want my soul, my energy and my money.
It bothers me a little bit how "scientists" are sometimes no better than mercenaries, selling themselves to the highest bidder, only looking out for themselves, we are on the same boat, and we are all on the third class accommodations, if it sinks we all drown, thanks for the heads up OP!



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:04 PM
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reply to post by dolphinfan
 


this reminds me of what i was reading the other day about the french paradox, the french paradox is basically about how the french consume alot of meat and fatty foods, however their cardiovascular system and life span, as well as general health is alot better and longer than other people who have similiar diets, the reason that was found was that they were drinking 1 to 3 glasses of red wine per day, which although an alcoholic beverage contains certain flavonoids and other scientific and medical things that really benifit the health enough to offset their diet and whatnot



i was reading about the french paradox and found out that in america during alcohol prohibition massive amounts of medical research and findings towards benifits of small amount of alcohol such as the french paradox example were literally torn from medical books!





POLITICAL SUPPRESSION
Although wine may be the oldest remedy and prophylactic still in use, there was an entire generation of medical professionals, especially in America, that obtained their medical education during the historical period known as Prohibition. Medical texts for nearly twenty-five years were purged and censored of any mention of alcohol, including wine, for any application other than external. This medical generation became educators to the following one, perpetuating medical ignorance of the potential health benefits of wine.

In the 1970s, the National Institute of Health excluded and suppressed evidence from the Framingham Heart Study that showed moderate drinkers had 50 per cent fewer deaths from coronary disease than non-drinkers.



now i know that science and medicine was in a different place then than now, but i see a trend in the way america does things like this, i mean right now ( 2010 ) we are still under prohibition of marijuana plant, and you can see some great similiarities between the covering up of benifitial information about that plant today as there was on red wine during the alcohol prohibition!

link
edit on 11/19/2010 by indigothefish because: (no reason given)

edit on 11/19/2010 by indigothefish because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:17 PM
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Originally posted by indigothefish
now i know that science and medicine was in a different place then than now, but i see a trend in the way america does things like this, i mean right now ( 2010 ) we are still under prohibition of marijuana plant, and you can see some great similiarities between the covering up of benifitial information about that plant today as there was on red wine during the alcohol prohibition!


I think that the main reason marijuana is outlawed is because of the benefits it has in other fields...

if we were allowed to grow hemp it would drastically lower the costs of numerous other things.

"INDUSTRY FACTS

*Henry Ford experimented with hemp to build car bodies. He wanted to build and fuel cars from farm products.

*BMW is experimenting with hemp materials in automobiles as part of an effort to make cars more recyclable.

*Much of the bird seed sold in the US has hemp seed (it's sterilized before importation), the hulls of which contain about 25% protein.

*Hemp oil once greased machines. Most paints, resins, shellacs, and varnishes used to be made out of linseed (from flax) and hemp oils.

*Rudolph Diesel designed his engine to run on hemp oil.

*Kimberly Clark (on the Fortune 500) has a mill in France which produces hemp paper preferred for bibles because it lasts a very long time and doesn't yellow.

*Construction products such as medium density fiber board, oriented strand board, and even beams, studs and posts could be made out of hemp. Because of hemp's long fibers, the products will be stronger and/or lighter than those made from wood.

*The products that can be made from hemp number over 25,000."

"*Hemp can displace cotton which is usually grown with massive amounts of chemicals harmful to people and the environment. 50% of all the world's pesticides are sprayed on cotton.

*Hemp can yield 3-8 dry tons of fiber per acre. This is four times what an average forest can yield."

"*At a volume level of 81%, hemp oil is the richest known source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (the "good" fats). It's quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient also found in mother's milk."

naihc.org...

Hemp is just too good for the population for them to allow us to have it... for many reasons



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:18 PM
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I was once contracting officer at NIH for medial research in the areas of the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Cancer Institute . I witnessed a serious change in the culture of medicine and research during my time at NIH. We "progressed" from Western ethics in medicine and research to humanism. They are very different world views and serve completely different masters. This change explains the findings of this study.

In my opinion, the extreme elitism we see in science right now is a puffy, demeaning front to hide the reality that there is less and less truth and professional substance in American science. There was a time when American scientists freely admited what they know and do not know. In medical science, centrally, they upheld ethics in protection of human life. They were not afraid to question anything and in fact, they looked at questioning as the road to advancement in knowledge .

For example, the silly claims of "settled science" made by politcially motivated scientists today would have been laughed out of the country. The social sciences have been corrupted by political cause for a long time but medical science stood by the Western ethics of truth and professional standards. It was not so in the Soviet Union and that is much of the reason why we were more innovative and successful in science and technology. We are the Soviets now.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:21 PM
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Originally posted by dolphinfan
There is a "study" out today which states that 20% of Americans are mentally ill. Exactly how is that determined? Who paid for the research? How can something by its very nature be subjective be pushed out as science?

What are the odds that either the mental health industry or big pharma funded in part, either directly or through shell organizations this work? Pretty slim.



Interesting spin.

However the source of this claim has a few skeletons in their closet...
NVIC Says BMJ Review Demonstrates Medical Journal Bias Toward Pharma-Sponsored Influenza Vaccine Studies

In a review of influenza vaccine studies published in the British Medical Journal Tom Jefferson, M.D., Ph.D. (Cochrane Field, Rome, Italy) and colleagues found that published influenza vaccine studies sponsored by industry are treated more favorably by medical journals even when the studies are of poor quality.

"This independent Cochrane review confirms that drug companies marketing vaccines have undue influence on what gets published in medical journals about vaccine safety and effectiveness,"

edit on 19-11-2010 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:25 PM
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While it is appalling that scientists are falsifying data, there is a plus side to this story. It shows that the scientific method is working. People are attempting to replicate these studies and are unable to do so and as a result the original findings are discarded. People may complain about faulty data and hoaxes in science, but it is not the laymen bringing these facts to light, but other scientists. This just shows that the scientific method, when properly employed, works.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:31 PM
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In America people buy their degrees.

In other countries they work for them. I know many people who have degrees and are supposed to be smart, but aren't.

I can tell you stories......But I think everyone has met someone in America with a degree that's dumber than a rock.
I think we all can concur everything in our country is politically driven and not upon fact or law anymore. Hence the poster saying "We are Russia now" is 100% correct. I don't even think we are at Russia's level anymore.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:32 PM
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reply to post by kalisdad
 


exactly, and that elaborates my point and further the point of the original post:

american politics will do anything for the interest of corporations

suppressing or outlawing vital information and truth, it gets rotten...

i know this thread isn't particularly about hemp, but as i mentioned in my previous post, during alcohol prohibition medical information on benefits of any alcohol consumption was torn out of books and suppressed, however, now in our time we consider the french paradox and benefits to be common knowledge

i beleive that in the future we will be reading about the benifits of hemp and medicinal values of marijuana on the human body in the same way, and we will read and hear about tales of the marijuana prohibition and how the politics of the time suppressed and outlawed means to prove it's benefits!

i suppose my conclusion would be that although, yes politics in america are ( and have been for a while ) not in the best interest of those involved... however nothing lasts forever and eventually we all mature, learn and grow out of ignorance
edit on 11/19/2010 by indigothefish because: (no reason given)

edit on 11/19/2010 by indigothefish because: (no reason given)



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:41 PM
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This article itself is possibly in error or fraudulent. They do not give enough numbers to know for sure. First, there is a glaring methodological error unless the PubMed database is a representative sample of all scientific publications. Second, the raw number of retractions is meaningless without knowing the total number of publications and the ratio published by researchers in the country in question.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:44 PM
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reply to post by indigothefish
 


the truth is suppressed in many ways...

we are told that smoking is the biggest cause of cancer in the world, but the truth is, its not the tobacco that is causing this, its the chemicals they add to the majority of cigarettes that causes cancer

and they also ignore the fact that 90% of the worlds cleaning products contain a corrosive that breaks down matter, and that when we ingest it, breath it it, and absorb it through our skin, it does its job, it breaks down the cellular structure of our bodies causing cancer to form.

they also don't tell you the effects of all the chemicals that are in products we use daily and what happends when you start mixing them together...

chemical A does no damage to the human body
chemical B does no damage to the body
but mixing chemical A and chemical B does cause damage to the body

they will never tell you these things because then they would have to rethink and redesign the majority of the products the world purchases and not only would they lose the revinue from sales, but they would have to spend even more in research and development of a new, less caustic product to replace the old one.

its a shame that they have us so distracted with the sports and entertainment industries. its at the point where they don't even care to hide the fact that they are doing things that cause us harm anymore.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 01:48 PM
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reply to post by dolphinfan
 


Part of this bothers me but the fact that these papers were then retracted is good. If science rejects the fraudulent research it's not as big of a deal although it will slow the scientific progress down a good bit to have to constantly be tossing out junk research.



there is no dispute that much of the science was poorly conducted.


I disagree. The science is already in, Global Warming is happening and human beings are adding to the problem. It isn't considered poorly conducted and its been going on since the early 90s.

I agree that we need to get science back on track, other nations are going to surpass us even further if we don't get our act together. I think that really this starts with better science education to raise a new generation of better more ethical scientists not willing to bend science when someone comes along offering them a wad of cash to publish favorable research for their corporation.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 02:10 PM
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reply to post by Titen-Sxull
 


The science on global warming show various causes and outcomes. The fact is that a significant body of work has been shown to be a best poorly conducted. All of it? Certainly not. Has there been a systematic effort to quell studies that are founded on good science that dispute the notion of global warming? That too is without dispute.

The global warming issue is an excellent example of the issues here.

Corrporate interests support the global warming theory - those in the carbon trading, alt energy industry
Corporate interests support the anti-global warming theory - oil and gas, auto, heavy machinery, utilities

Political pressure groups support the global warming theory - the high tax groups, big government type, environmental groups, anti-capitalism groups
Political pressure groups support the anti-global warming theory - free market groups, low tax groups, small government groups

The whole business is a mess and the real problem is that because it is, the truth is obscured and as a consequence massive amount of money and energy is misdirected. It also makes the public numb and after a bit of time, folks just don't give a rip. That has obviously happened in the global warming isssue. Its not top page news any longer. When did it drop off the top page? Shortly after a bunch of the science supporting it was discredited.

This kind of fraud is no different than any other kind of fraud. It undermines faith in a system or process. It is criminal behavior and needs to be treated as such. Someone who knowingly publishes work that they know to be wrong or misleading or know that the proper scientific methods were not used is guilty of fraud or professional misconduct and should be prosecuted, not left alone to do it again.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 02:27 PM
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Originally posted by dolphinfan

This is not surprising. Science in the US is heavily influenced by corporate and political interests and scientists seeking fame, grant cash and nice acedemic positions have a significant incentive to either do shoddy work or to simply to commit fraud.


Nailed it right there. perfect example is where the thread is now....global warming. IMO Corporate interests bought the science to boost their carbon credit movement.
Great thread



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 03:39 PM
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It appears the PhysOrg article is a misinterpretation of a study, the author of which misinterpreted his own data. Here is a rebuttal that includes the relevant numbers.


We can see that the US has a slightly higher [than average] estimated rate of retraction due to fraud, which corresponds to about 30% more fraud per paper than average. But China and India have higher rates of retraction due to fraud than the US (and p-value fans will be happy to know that they are both statistically significance, with lots of stars to make you happy). China has about 3 times as many fraud retractions per paper as average, and India 5 times as many.

blogs.nature.com...



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 04:13 PM
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There is another dynamic at work here that isn't being addressed, many scientific papers are labeled as fraud because they don't meet the preconceived paradigm. It happens all the time in archeology. The scientific community in all it's arrogance wants to think that they are smarter and know more then anything or anyone who preceded them.

We cannot assume that all of these papers are thrown out because of fraud.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 04:16 PM
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reply to post by dolphinfan
 


S&F


Not surprising at all, is it?

Used to be knowledge for knowledge sake, now it's Intellectual Property - for sale to highest bidder.



posted on Nov, 19 2010 @ 05:28 PM
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reply to post by Aquarius1
 


On some of them that is perhaps the case. On many of these "studies" that relate to soft sciences such as psychology and economics there are so many assumptions placed into the methodology they can never be categorized as hard science, yet the scientific community representing that discipline and in support of that world view certainly push it out as such. The media further pushes that agenda as evidenced by the 1 in 5 Americans have mental illness. By what scientific protocol can that be ascertained? Clearly there are definitions that are subject to intrepretation and the gathering of the data used to conduct the study vague at best. "I feel depresed all the time" does that kind of input classsify the person as having a mental illness? "Sometimes I drink too much" That too? rubbish.

When it comes to hard science, the agenda clearly drives some of the outcomes, regardless of the motivations, noble or not. With respect to the global warming study that was represented as hard science, the researchers admitted that they were so certain of the outcome that they used insufficient data appropriate for a study of that nature, tossed out data points that skewed the results away from their desired outcomes and inserted invalid data that supported their desired outcome.

Hard science has long established protocols such as ensuring the validity of data sources, using sufficient data to extrapolate an outcome etc. Computer models are by definition assumption based.

These works should be qualified up front what protocols are used, the justification for their use, the limitations of the outcomes. In general, much of this work is thematic in nature and suggests a cause or likely outcome within some probability, that probability based on the faults in the inputs of the study.

That does not garner you much media attention, not a tenured spot at a top university or a large grant. "Data suggests that increases in CO2 can cause warming. The limitations of the study are XXXX and thus the outcome is by no means certain". That does not get you a spot on some news program. "The oceans are going to rise an inch a year for the next 100 years and we will have a global disaster" does get attention.

Science today is in many cases no more than agitprop.



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