Last year we discussed the story of a doctor at Columbia University who was involved in multiple cases of research fraud lasting over a decade—and is still being promoted by the university, years after this fraud came out. In a comment, Sholto David informs us that Columbia is investigating the case, so maybe by the time this post appears, Columbia will have fired the offending researcher.
Following the link at Sholto David’s comment let me to a website called For Better Science, and . . . wow. There’s a lot of corruption out there by medical researchers at top universities. Columbia included, and not just Dr. Oz and not just the doctor mentioned above. Here’s another example, which I only happened to notice because the relevant post is near the top of the webpage right now. For Better Science is run by Leonid Schneider, with whom we corresponded a few years ago regarding the replication crisis.
I read Retraction Watch and I know about fraud—but just the level of this, it’s stunning. I guess my problem is that I haven’t been thinking about the problem statistically. It says here that Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons—I guess that’s what we’d call “the medical school”—has 2600 faculty. If, say, 10% of them are cheaters, then that would be 260 of those people rattling around in the institution. Not all these people will be cheating on research: some of them are cheating on their taxes, others are double-billing patients or fiddling with their expense accounts or selling drugs on the side, or . . . all sorts of things, I suppose!
The point is that I shouldn’t be so shocked to hear that Columbia medical school has prominent faculty who’ve been involved in research fraud. If you’re a medical researcher and a cheater, then research fraud is a natural step. Just as if you’re a storekeeper and a cheater, then ripping off your customers and employees is a natural step; or if you’re a statistician and a cheater, then it makes sense to hire yourself out as a data manipulator; or if you’re a CEO and a cheater, then it makes sense to fake your corporate reports; or if you sell used cars and you’re a cheater, then you’ll hide the flaws in your cars; or if you’re a university administrator and a cheater, then it makes sense to fake your U.S. News statistics . . . ulp! In all these examples, there’s a clear incentive to cheat: if you play honest, it’s easy to fall behind your competitors who could be cheating too. Indeed, you could argue that, if you play by the rules, you’d be letting the side down . . . it’s arguably unethical not to cheat. You’re developing treatments what will save lives, after all!
OK, I don’t buy that last bit. Lots of good research is done without cheating. I strongly disagree with the statement that research fraud serves a greater good, and in any case no one would make such a claim in public even if they might think so privately.
But what I’m hung up on here is the idea that there are so many cases of fraud out there. The error that we make at Columbia and other institutions is the implicit assumption that fraud will almost never happen, so that every newly-discovered instance is treated as a completely new and surprising event.
What should be done about this, I’m not sure. Until looking at that For Better Science, I just hadn’t thought hard about the sheer prevalence of scientific fraud at major university medical centers. It’s just part of the culture, in the same way that shortchanging the rubes is part of carny culture. Seeing the occasional story in Retraction Watch hadn’t given me the sense of the sheer density of fraud in the system.
Maybe Dan Davies, as an author of a thoughtful book on financial fraud, would have some thoughts on this one.
Quote no. 1 from the blog post: “The point is that I shouldn’t be so shocked to hear that Columbia medical school has prominent faculty who’ve been involved in research fraud. If you’re a medical researcher and a cheater, then research fraud is a natural step.”
This reminds me of a paper by Kornfeld (2012), more specifically the following quote: “Is that not obvious? Fabrication,
falsification, and plagiarism are the academic equivalents of lying, cheating, and stealing. The ethical standards proscribing
such behavior are established long before one enters graduate training in science.” (p. 878).
Kornfeld (2012) was talking about responsible conduct of research training programs here, and that they might not be that useful in light of preventing research misbehavior, if I understand correctly. Anyway, as a psychiatrist he investigated cases of research misconduct and concluded that psychologial traits or states might play a role regarding misconduct. He also provides a catagorization, which includes “the grandiose”, “the ethically challenged” and “the sociopath” (p. 879).
Quote no. 2 from the blog post: “What should be done about this, I’m not sure.”
Perhaps some more attention concerning the personality characteristics of researchers might be appropriate and useful. At least that’s what I think might be very appropriate and useful. That’s why I cited the paper by Kornfeld (2012) in one of my manuscripts that more explictly tries to make clear that certain personality characteristics might play a role regarding several (arguably) problematic issues (including scientific misconduct) in academia in general, and psychological science in particular. Or to quote James (1995) who wrote about fraud and hoaxes in science: “Some scientists are psychopaths: it is the business of other scientists to detect signs of this condition.” (James, 1995, p. 474).
The utility of cheating rises in the returns from cheating, but falls in researcher competence. Plus, we all know that the random component of both cheating and noncheating utility follows an extreme value distribution. So a series of carefully designed logit regressions will precisely estimate a cheating probability for each faculty member Once we have run the regression to get the correct coefficients, we simply reduce salaries for each researcher to lower their probability of cheating to the desired level. (Some may get raises from this procedure, if their cheating probabilties are not low enough.)
Quote from above: “So a series of carefully designed logit regressions will precisely estimate a cheating probability for each faculty member ”
Or some simple questionnaires might provide some useful information. For instance, I have come across several papers which, for me, together made it seem reasonable to suggest that people with psychopathic characteristics might be more likely to consciously and deliberately engage in questionable research practices and unethical behavior.
More specifically because they might have a more competitive world-view and a hyper-competitive attitude (see ten Brinke et al., 2015; Ross & Rausch, 2001), might have a weaker moral identity (see Glenn et al., 2010), might be less conscientious and agreeable (see Giluk & Postlethwaite, 2015; Miller & Lynam, 2015; Schneider et al., 2024), might be more likely to make unethical decisions (see Stevens et al., 2012; Harrison et al., 2018), might be more likely to take risks within the ethical domain (see Hosker-Field et al., 2016), and might be more likely to cheat (see Book et al., 2019).
I have also tried to combine papers and findings like these with some work on psychopathy in particular, for instance by Cleckley (1941/1988) to try and come up with a short summarizing list of possible characteristics of “the prototypical psychopathic psychological scientist”. In light of the quote depicted somewhere else in the comment section here by James (1995): “Some scientists are psychopaths: it is the business of other scientists to detect signs of this condition.” (p. 474), I reasoned this might be useful in some way, shape, or form. Here is the attempt to come up with such a summarizing list of characteristics:
• High social status, absent or limited aggressive antisocial behavior, and possibly high intelligence
• Desire to have power and status
• Competitive world-view and hyper-competitive attitude
• Weak moral identity and low moral standards
• Selfish, egocentric, and lacking in empathy
• Narcissistic, possibly grandiose
• Bold
• Superficially charming
• Mean
• Untrustworthy, deceitful, and manipulative
• Irresponsible, unreliable, and unconscientious
• Lacking in remorse
Haven’t surveys asking how often scientists commit fraud and “questionable research practices” been done? That would provide a lower bound on the density.
0.9-4.5% in the first meta-analysis I found admitted to fabricating data. 34% (upper bound) admitted to doing QRPs.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2685008/
This is a quote from a more recent paper by Gopalakrishna et al. (2022, PLoS ONE 17(2) e: 0263023) concerning engagement in QRPs and fabrication and falsification (FF) and their potential explanatory factors:
“When it comes to misconduct, previous surveys report the prevalence to be in the range of about 2–3% [9, 10] rising to as much as 15.5% when the questions concern misconduct observed in others [9]. In our study, the prevalence estimate of self–reported fabrication is 4.3% and self-reported falsification, 4.2%, while the prevalence estimate of any FF is 8.3%. When looking at disciplinary field-specific estimates of misconduct, life and medical sciences have the highest estimate of any FF (10.4%).” (p. 12)
They also write the following, which might underline the possibility that individual differences and personality might play a role in research behavior, and that it might be appropriate and useful to give this all way more attention:
“Scientific norms subscription was one of two explanatory factor scales with the largest significant association in lowering any frequent QRP and FF in our regression analyses.” (p. 11)
To add to this, and further underline the possibilty that individual differences and personality might play a role in research behavior, and that it might be appropriate and useful to give this all way more attention, I would like to also mention some recent findings by Schneider et al. (2024) who write in the abstract concerning their research into QRPs:
“Finally, the personality traits conscientiousness and, to a lesser degree, agreeableness were also inversely associated with self-reported prevalence.” (p. 1)
If I understand correctly, conscientiousness and agreeablesness have previously been found to be negatively related to academic dishonesty in high school and university students (see Giluk & Postlethwaite, 2015). And, (suprise, surprise) low scores on conscientiousness and agreeableness might be notably characteristic of psychopathy (see Miller & Lynam, 2015).
I have been whining for the last few years that the focus on Frencesca Gino’s behavioral economics publications was ill placed because far more dangerous stuff involving cancer is rampant in the medical world, including at Columbia. Take my word for it, there is an epidemic of photoshopping misbehavior around the country in cancer research because it is so easy. Actually, do not take my word for it: Sholto David’s sleuthing was mentioned in today’s blog but there is also the research investigator, Elisabeth Bik:
https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/elisabeth-bik-on-the-trail-of-scientific-fraud/
But back to Gino and Harvard. Hardly anyone knows/talks about this more important Harvard scandal involving double-digit publications:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/top-harvard-cancer-institute-will-retract-six-studies-correct-31-more-after-photoshop-claims-180983642/
“British biologist and blogger Sholto David alleged that executives at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute published papers with manipulated data and images”
In terms of financial fraud, Erik Lie recently put out a book called Catching Cheaters. He used statistics to show that companies were post-dating stock options for the financial benefit of their C-suite executives.
I don’t know if you have or keep a database of scientific fraudsters. There’s a guy named John Hempton, who is with an Australian firm called Bronte Capital. He says that his firm keeps a database of financial fraudsters, or, at least, that was what I heard him say. I don’t know who does their statistical analysis, but Hempton once said that they found geographic pockets of financial fraudsters in Vancouver, the state of Utah, and Boca Raton. Vancouver is a known problem, according to Davies and Joe Queenan. Hempton said, as best I recall (it was several years ago), that fraudsters in the Vancouver area were organized and large enough to accomplish regulatory capture.
Bronte Capital is not named after the Brontes, but is related to Bronte Beach in or near Sydney, where Hempton and others go body-surfing over the lunch hour.
Independent replication, and making actual predictions that distinguish one theory from another. And if the sheer density of fraud is concerning, what about the even more common mistakes, confusion, and biases? That will be covered for free too.
Stop believing anything that has been published until these methods have been applied. Especially if it “makes sense” and is pushed by heavy authority/consensus rhetoric.
There is a specific age in biomedical research, between the eighties and the beginning of this century, when experiment results had to be shown as either microscopy images or electrophoresis (“gel”) images. Most of the “excessive” fakery is limited to these two types of data, on one hand due to limited digital and, frankly, intellectual skills of the biomedical researchers, which made falsified images really easy to identify. But on the other hand, no other field of science puts this sort of multidimensional data out. Those are much easier to dissect, compared the more recent polygenic scores or crispr-based BS. You will never be able to prove that “organ in a dish” did not work for the esteemed researcher; you will fail to replicate them because you lack his manual skills!
The jewel is of course the microfluidics used for the Covid vaccines. They are proprietary, you see, so regardless of chemical composition being copied 1:1, you cannot hope to replicate their health benefits.
Regarding the title of the blog – the density of fraud is much higher than the density of fraud reports
As for all kinds of crime.
“It’s just part of the culture, in the same way that shortchanging the rubes is part of carny culture.”
The estimated densities don’t support this, as regards outright fraud, and neither does the way the topic is discussed, generally with horror and surprise. The existence of burglars in society doesn’t make burglary part of the culture.
It was historically true of p-hacking and other QRPs, as witness Wansink’s describing these with approval. This is where cultural change is needed
In light of your comment I was thinking about “publication bias” or “the file drawer problem” or whatever term is most appropriate to describe the situation where scientists don’t publish or report their non-significant findings.
I believe this behavior might be just as, if not more, prevalent as QRP’s like testing for significance and if not significant collect more data with more participants or HARKING-ing or such things. I reason this behavior of not submitting or resubmitting valid negative studies for publication (e.g. see Gopalakrishna et al. 2022) might be seen as a way more serious issue than other QRP’s.
The terminology or words like “publication bias” and “the file-drawer problem” and the possible normalization of this behavior and its presence might result in people perhaps not looking at that behavior in the same way as they look at other questionable or certain spefici fraudulent research practices like fabrication.
“Falsification” can be defined as “a willful perversion of facts” or “willful misstatement or misrepresentation”, and I wonder how that might relate to the behavior of individual researchers, editors, reviewers, journals, or entire scientific fields or branches (or whatever term is appropriate here) when it comes to not submitting or publishing “negative” or non-significant findings…
John:
You write, “The estimated densities don’t support this, as regards outright fraud, and neither does the way the topic is discussed, generally with horror and surprise. The existence of burglars in society doesn’t make burglary part of the culture.”
I’m of two minds on this. On one hand, yeah, I see your point that outright fraud is anomalous, and when people get caught they typically don’t admit it. On the other hand, people who have been involved in cases of outright fraud usually seem to stay around. Institutions don’t do anything about them. I’m thinking of examples such as that Columbia medical school guy (and, before that, Dr. Oz), Dan Ariely at Duke, David Agus at USC, the Why We Sleep guy at the University of California, and others. Oh, yeah, also Columbia’s fake U.S. News numbers.
Just to be careful, I’ve labeled each of these as “been involved in” cases of outright fraud, because it’s hard to prove anything–these people always will offer some out as to why they were making blatantly false statements, there’s always some collaborator or research assistant to blame, and it could be that indeed in these cases there were other perpetrators involved. So, sure, it can be hard to fire people when they don’t voluntarily admit wrongdoing.
Still, I get the impression that the people in charge of research and educational institutions just don’t care about research integrity, that they see the problem as it being revealed, not that it exists at all. It’s similar to how a company might reward an executive who gooses the numbers. Fake research can bring positive publicity.
Quote from above: “Still, I get the impression that the people in charge of research and educational institutions just don’t care about research integrity, that they see the problem as it being revealed, not that it exists at all. It’s similar to how a company might reward an executive who gooses the numbers. Fake research can bring positive publicity.”
I hope it’s okay to share what I wrote in some manuscript, which includes some relevant quotes and references in my view and interpretation of the quote above.
“Maybe universities really don’t care that much about questionable or fraudulent behavior of their scientists as long as their scientists serve the interests of the more powerful members of the community. If scientists add honorary authors with a reputation to grant proposals because this increases the chances of receiving funding (see Fong & Wilhite, 2017, p. 19), it might be the case that the more powerful members of the research community don’t worry that much about that practice because: “Of course, grants provide resources, which increase an academic’s research output, but there are also direct benefits from funded research accruing to the university: overhead charges, equipment purchases that can be used for future projects, graduate student support, etc.” (Fong & Wilhite, 2017, p. 3). Or as a certain fraudulent psychological scientists makes clear in his case, the more PhD students who graduated the better because successful dissertations meant his university received money from the government (Stapel, 2014, p. 5). In this case, the interests of the more powerful
members of the research community might be served no matter the quality of the dissertations, or as the fraudulent psychological scientist wrote in his book “A mediocre or even outright bad dissertation still counts for the money machine, (…)” (Stapel, 2014, p. 6). And the interests of the more powerful members of the research community might still, also, or perhaps even better be served if a researcher engages in questionable or even fraudulent practices. Perhaps this explains why it took several mentions of fraud to members of the academic staff before one was finally followed up (see Levelt et al., 2012, p. 45-46; also see Harvey, 2020; Martin, 1992, p. 89-90).”