Mailund on the Internet

I wasn't going to comment on this, but it is getting ridiculous now.

There's a case of scientific fraud going on at Copenhagen University, that isn't just your "typical" fraud case, but is reaching the absurd.

Recent coverage (in Danish) here, here and here.

It is one of the poster scientists from Copenhagen U that is not only on trial for scientific fraud, but it has reach the level of legal actions against her for falsifying documents. She was reported to the police for this recently. It has even reached the ministerial office. This is just crazy!

This is someone who got the "elite scientist" award a few years back. I got the junior version in 2008, but I am feeling a bit ashamed of this now.

In an independent case -- and for legal reasons, due to closed doors policies at court we have to assume it is an independent case although everything points towards the same scientist -- a research at Copenhagen U tried framing a student for the fraud. Not just scientific but financial.

I find it hard to grasp how someone who has been known to have dodgy results -- and this is an old case -- was used as the poster child by the university, but even more I find it hard to grasp how scientific fraud can be taken this far.

I can sort of see how the cut-throat competition in a field where there are so few tenure positions per scientist can lead to desperation. I can see how someone who really believes in a hypothesis can doctor some experiments by avoiding the evidence against and promote the evidence for the desired result.

Not accept, but partly understand. Assuming that they believe that further studies will eventually prove the hypothesis.

But once you start sliding down that slippery slope, eventually you must know that you will be caught. We are in a field where everything is tested again and again.  You will eventually be confronted with dodgy results.

How can anyone believe that they will get away with it? That, I don't get.

What I consider the strongest point of science is that the whole system is based on figuring out the truth. We have a system designed for that specific purpose, and it is amazingly powerful. If a theory is wrong, we will eventually find out. Then we will start to question why we thought otherwise earlier, and if it is because of dodgy science, we will figure that out.

Trying to cheat in science is silly. The whole system is designed to figure that out, and I feel angry that someone will even try!

Not only that. I get angry thinking about the time and money spend trying to validate results that are just based on bogus.

There is a reason we consider scientific fraud the highest sin a researcher can commit.

I feel insulted and really angry about this case.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 at 6:15 pm and is filed under Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.