Misconducts in Research

Misconducts in research: An
introduction
The truth of the matter is that you always know the right
thing to do. The hard part is doing it. General Norman
Schwarzkopfdf
Definition
Behavior by a researcher, intentional or not, that falls short of good ethical and
scientific standards
Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing,
performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.
Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or
omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research
record.
Plagiarism is the appropriation of another persons ideas, processes, results, or words
without giving appropriate credit.
Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion."
The idea that the same experiments always get the same results, no matter
who performs them, is one of the cornerstones of sciences claim to
objective truth.
If a systematic campaign of replication does not lead to the same results,

then either the original research is flawed or the replications are
Over the past few years various researchers have made systematic attempts to
replicate some of the more widely cited priming experiments. Many of these
replications have failed.
There are errors in a lot more of the scientific papers being published, written
about and acted on than anyone would normally suppose, or like to think
The results in a scientific paper are not supposed to be the reflection of an
individual scientists unique, personal views; they are supposed to be a general
claim about how the world worksone

that can be verified by others.
There is some evidence that the retraction rate of scientific papers is on the rise,
but retracted papers are only a minuscule fraction of all published research.
Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To

an alarming degree, it is not.
Academic scientists readily acknowledge that they often get things
wrong.
But they also hold fast to the idea that these errors get corrected over
time as other scientists try to take the work further.
Scientists divide errors into two classes. A type I error is the mistake
of thinking something is true when it is not ( false positive). A type
II error is thinking something is not true when in fact it is ( false
negative)
Continued
When testing a specific hypothesis, scientists run statistical checks to
work out how likely it would be for data which seem to support the
idea to have come about simply by chance. If the likelihood of such a
false-positive conclusion is less than 5%, they deem the evidence that
the hypothesis is true statistically significant.
In other words, they are thus accepting that one result in 20 will be
falsely positive
Research integrity:
Common Principals of Research Integrity:
Honesty in all aspects of research
Accountability in the conduct of research
Professional courtesy and fairness in

working with others
Good stewardship of research on behalf

of others
John Bohannon, a biologist at Harvard, recently submitted a pseudonymous

paper on the effects of a chemical derived from lichen on cancer cells to 304
journals describing themselves as using peer review. An unusual move; but it was
an unusual paper, concocted wholesale and stuffed with clangers in study design,
analysis and interpretation of results. Receiving this dogs dinner from a fictitious
researcher at a made up university, 157 of the journals accepted it for publication.
In a classic 1998 study Fiona Godlee, editor of the prestigious British Medical
Journal, sent an article containing eight deliberate mistakes in study design,
analysis and interpretation to more than 200 of the BMJs regular reviewers. Not
one picked out all the mistakes. On average, they reported fewer than two; some
did not spot any.
Negativity around the negatives

Ignoring the vast information source that is negative results is troublesome in
several ways.
Firstly, it skews the scientific literature by only including chosen pieces of information.
Secondly, it causes a huge waste of time and resources, as other scientists considering
the same questions may perform the same experiments.
Furthermore, given that positive results are published, whereas negative data
will struggle, it is extremely difficult to correct the scientific record for false
positives; controversial studies that conflict with or cannot reproduce
previously published studies are seldom given space in peer-reviewed
journals.
Sometimes the argument is given that

negative data cannot be trusted.
But as was pointed out in the 2013
article Trouble at the Lab in The
Economist, negative data are
statistically more trustworthy than
positive data.
Science is, by its nature, a
collaborative discipline, and one of
the principal reasons why we should
report negative results is so our
colleagues do not waste their time
and resources repeating our findings
Conclusion
Misconduct is an alarming and growing up phenomena, it occurs both
intentionally and unintentionally
Unlimited negative effect can be produced through it
The direction of scientific research should not be determined by the
pressure to win the significance lottery, but rather systematic,
hypothesis-driven attempts to fill holes in our knowledge. At the core,
it is our duty as scientists to both:
(1) publish all data, no matter what the outcome, because a negative finding is
still an important finding; and
(2) have a hypothesis to explain the finding
Recommendations
Promoting culture of integrity,
Prevention through training ,
Developing Policies and guidelines,
Preliminary assessment; correction ; Inquiry; investigation; punishment,
Ethical standards need to be made clear so that researchers can determine whether
their work breaches certain codes
Alleviation of pressure on researchers,
Greater control of research sponsored by outside organizations
Investigation into research irregularities must be fair, prompt, transparent, and allow
for retractions to be made promptly once evidence of misconduct has been confirmed
Continued
Educating on what constitutes research misconduct, and the
seriousness of its repercussions
Educating potential researchers at an early stage (e.g. at medical
school) on the mechanics of research ethics is essential to finding a
solution to this problem and ensuring careers are constructed on
honesty and integrity
(http://www.indiana.edu/~poynter/)
Progress of science is built on trust.
Jean Shepherd, In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data.
Public and private efforts to make published

research more reproducible
Science can only self-correct if there is awareness of what needs correcting.
A privately organized consortium called the Reproducibility Initiative hopes to get scientists to prioritize
reproducibility in their work by offering what is essentially a seal of quality assurance. A related effort is the
Reproducibility Project, a large collaborative project which aims to
replicate key results from a set of
highly cited recent papers in cancer biology and psychology.
The NIH is also planning significant interventions to ensure that we can trust the results that are published.
New Negatives in Plant Science a pilot journal: It is an open access journal that publishes both research articles
and commentaries.
In recent years, open-access and broad-scope journals such as PLOS One, Frontiers and the Biomed
Central journal series are increasingly publishing papers with negative findings.
Additionally, a number of journals have surfaced whose primary objective is to disseminate negative findings, such
as Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis, Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine and The All
Results Journal.
Likelihood of results to be true:

1. The smaller the studies conducted in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true
2. The smaller the effect sizes in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true
3. The greater the number and the lesser the selection of tested relationships in a scientific field, the less
likely the research findings are to be true
4. The greater the flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes in a scientific field,
the less likely the research findings are to be true
5. The greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the
research findings are to be true
6. The hotter a scientific field (with more scientific teams involved), the less likely the research findings
are to be true
(Ref- http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)

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Misconducts in research: An

If a systematic campaign of replication does not lead to the same results,

Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To

Honesty in all aspects of research

Accountability in the conduct of research

Professional courtesy and fairness in

Good stewardship of research on behalf

John Bohannon, a biologist at Harvard, recently submitted a pseudonymous

Negativity around the negatives

Sometimes the argument is given that

Progress of science is built on trust.

Jean Shepherd, In God We Trust, All Others Bring Data.

Public and private efforts to make published

Likelihood of results to be true:

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