Re:Allegations of Scientific Misconduct Mount as Physicist M...
by JKCalhoun on Friday March 10, 2023 @12:36PM
(#35097884)
I'm not in a research field but I feel like someone looking for and then raising $20M in funding has already taken a very large step onto that slippery slope.
If I had $20M looking over my shoulder at my lab results I would feel a certain obligation to "perform" — or certainly to appease.
At first I can imagine data is legit but maybe a bit "curated" for the client. Later some data is dropped altogether. Maybe conditions are tweaked to get more promising looking data. Results that have an error range are penciled in to one end of the range or the other to, again, show more favorable results.
Naively I assumed there was a "purity" to research that would not even start on the path to looking for cash. Grants, on the other hand, as I understand them, don't have the same assumptions of showing a profit.
If I had $20M looking over my shoulder at my lab results I would feel a certain obligation to "perform" — or certainly to appease.
At first I can imagine data is legit but maybe a bit "curated" for the client. Later some data is dropped altogether. Maybe conditions are tweaked to get more promising looking data. Results that have an error range are penciled in to one end of the range or the other to, again, show more favorable results.
Naively I assumed there was a "purity" to research that would not even start on the path to looking for cash. Grants, on the other hand, as I understand them, don't have the same assumptions of showing a profit.