Fraud in Science Article
In the Economist dated June 6 to 12, 2009
Liar! Liar

Daniele Fanelli of the University of Edinburgh published a Meta- analysis in the Public Library of Science in which he pooled the the results of 18 surveys of scientitst he found on the internet that dealt with reporting fraud. He found basically that 2% of the scientists questioned were willing to admit to having falsified or modified data to improve the outcome of experiments at least once during their scientific careers. About 10% of those questioned admitted to questionable practices such as "dropping data points based on a gut feeling" or "failing to present data that contradicted ones previous research. " These numbers went up when scientists were asked about the activities of other colleagues, suggesting that 14% of researchers had seen their collegues fabricate, falsify, alter, or modify data. If asked in more general terms, 46% of the scientists reported that other collegues ran experiments with deficient methods, or failed to report deficiencies or misrepresented data. Apparently, only half of those scientists who new about such behavior actually went ahead and tried to do anything about this misconduct.

This type of low level fraud is worrying since it can misdirect researchers to follow paths in their work that can lead to nowhere. At the same time it can discourgage research into areas that are important. The most visible cases in recent years were the Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk who falsely claimed that he had developed a method for making human embryonic stems cells by cloning, and the physicist Jan Schön who fabricated results in the fields of semiconductors and super conductors. These examples however were so high profile that it was only a matter time until the fraudulent nature of these claims were discovered. Low level fraud appears to be much more common and seems to reflect the pressures and competiton of the modern scientific enterprise "publish or persish."

Apparently some successful and famous scientists also committed low level fraud such as Robert Millikan the scientist who first measured the charge of the electron. He was reported to have discarded results that didn't match his expectations but still managed to win the Nobel prize because he was right in his gut feeling about the data. Another example is Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, whose results it has been claimed are far too accurate compared with what would be expected when applying the methods of modern statistics.
So it seems that scientists, being human, are more willing to see fault in others than in their own ethical behavior. This in my opinion shows the importance of ethical oversight at universities research centers, and industry and the need for open channels to address fraud in science in a discretionary but effective manner.