Do you think scientists and scholars ever lie about their research?

Question

Whenever the subject of climate change arises, invariable young people will say that scientists must be trusted. Unfortunately, scientists sometimes lie. Maybe they are lazy and simply fabricate research "results;" maybe they have some unspoken pressures to produce certain results; or maybe they simply have a personal bias that they want to support with "research" results.  Research studies are published in journals that are read by other researchers in the field, and others rely on the published research when they design and analyze their own research. Errors or lies in one study can be perpetuated and infect subsequent research, so the validity of data should always be open to scrutiny instead of the question being shouted down. Here's a current example of apparently completely fabricated research. . . AT HARVARD UNVERSITY!  So, do you think research should be blindly accepted or should it be carefully scrutinized and examined for bias or intentional error?

percival27 · Accepted Answer

In my humble opinion, the question about lies and errors from the part of the scientists is very easy to answer. Lot´s of articles are published due to the approval of reviewers that are supposed to be competent researchers in the subject of an article. The reviewers receive the articles in most occasions, without access to the primary evidence, or the raw data. They have no other choice but to trust that the statistics, levels of confidence, etc that are reported are true. They can object the implausibility of results in extreme cases. But they mostly are in charge of determining whether the article is relevant, meaning... checking whether it brings something relevant enough to publish, whether the methodology is sound, and if the paper is properly written, and the relevant references are commented. At a minimum level, they have to check if the article is really original.

If all these things are okay, and the article´s subject is relevant for the journal, proceedings or the conference they are sent for publication, they get published.

Can the scientist lie? yah. Does that mean that most do? doesn´t seem plausible for such risk-taking behavior to be common.

Can they make mistakes? all the time.

So, why take what scientists publish seriously? well, because it´s not black and white. There are levels of quality of evidence or data. Approving a law, a policy, or taking serious decisions, based on just one result in one scientific article.. is profoundly dumb.

Most people want´s certainties (is this true or not?). In science, the method calls for making experiments with the explicit intent that the experiment can disproof what the scientist anticipates will happen. But reviewers of an article can´t go and make an experiment to approve the article.. it wouldn´t make sense

What happens is that science methos are supposed to be reproducible. If a reviewer sees a paper, and sees there isn´t enough detail to allow for someone to replicate the experiment an confirm, they in general have to point this out and reject.

The system works because people from other labs, or institutions are working on the same question or problem, and they might find results that contradict what other article has said about that question. They HAVE to cite that other article, because it´s related, and assume a position, saying what they confirm, what they find is contradictory, and what stance they have in the definitions and descriptions of things.

So... there is little value in the quality of information, if just one article says it.

If several articles are showing research that not only confirms but expands on it, it has more reliability, it can be taken more seriously.

If studies from independent groups (with different sources of money, different lead researchers etc) confirm the conclusions regarding a problem, then it´s way more relevant.

As this is complimented with studies using methodologies that are more strict, like completely randomized experiments, etc etc... then it gains even more traction.

For this reason, from one paper, we can have some indications that it might not be reliable (the journal or conference is badly ranked), doesn´t include the most relevant references, doesn´t follow a sound methodology, etc. But that is just a baseline.

To truly give weight to scientific research findings, it takes the coincidence in conclusions from high quality studies from independent groups. And if we go into what we dare to call "theory" (like theory of Evolution) or "law"... it´s even harder, because it implies that every different angle, potential consequence and hypothetical predictive capabilities of the models have been generally accepted... to speak about it in a superficial level.

To close this very long opinion (sorry) I will just share how things look for someone who says something that isn´t true (error or lie... doesn´t matter): It will not be replicated nor confirmed by independent studies, and it won´t sustain the scrutiny of studies with high quality methodologies. And then it won´t be cited by other scientists... and the paper with the lie or error will be forgotten.

When they are not forgotten, is when people with power and money need to "wash" the face of what they are promoting by citing a paper... and go public... and it goes into the people´s TVs via the guys in the news, or in youtube or a blogger. Because people don´t question the quality of the sources of information when they are watching the news (most people) or reading someting on the internet, these things get a longer life.

But it´s not because of scientists.. it´s because most people hasn´t been trained to have critical thinking, and these things are posted in a way that incites either indignation or the confirmation of your beliefs in a sensible matter, and it provokes strong emotions before you ask yourself "but who is that supposed scientist?".

I am a weirdo. I read something, hear something... and go and see who is the guy, what are the things he usually publishes, the quality of the journals, and if he is cited in the "state of the art reviews" or "surveys".. I go and see if it is cited in a negative way or not and why.

I usually find that those making the most outrageous affirmations, are actually scientists... but they are saying something about a subject that IS NOT THEIR EXPERTISE,... or... there are no other papers confirming what they say... I just take a beer and let that go.

And yes... you may go and say "reviewers can be paid" ... I have reviewed more than 20 papers... and I am still waiting for my check. Thansk! lol. No pressure from anyone. If there is a criminal blackmailing that involves the editor of a journal that threatens the assigned reviewer... these things are serious violations of law. That doesn´t happen if the science institutions work as they are designed. Blackmailing and things like that can make someone do ANYTHING... yes. But it´s extremely unlikely that it gets to have power over independent institutions around the world, and thousands of PhD students that are working on these things for their thesis.

Main messages here, from my point of view:
1. yah, nobody is perfect, no system is perfect.
2. we´ve got serious problems because we aren´t being taught critical thinking. If we assign value to what we read with our gut, and let it be just our gut.. we will continue to be screwed.

richardcory · Accepted Answer

I'm a career researcher / scientists, though in physical sciences, not climate science.
I believe scientists lying or faking data is very rare. You hear about it because its the exception. In 30 year I've never seen it.

That said, sometimes results will be described in a way that makes them sound more exciting / interesting to the general public and funding agencies. Not lying - but more like... marketing. Personally I find this very objectionable.

All that said the public rarely sees actual scientists. What they see are spokesmen and high level managers, often not real scientists (or very far from having done science) and those people do say things that are extremely deceptive - for funding, for politics, whatever.

If you can get to the original work, the real scientific papers etc, they are usually very good. If you can talk to the actual working scientists, they will generally be honest. The problem is that this is very difficult for people outside of the scientific field

The other problem is that climate research papers do not have titles like "is global warming real?". They have titles like "Assessment of Shortwave Infrared Sea Surface Reflection and Nonlocal Thermodynamic Equilibrium Effects in the Community Radiative Transfer Model Using IASI Data" Because studying climate (or any science field) is incredibly complex, and made up of huge numbers of studies, each representing a lot of work.

Its a big problem. The science is too complex for non-experts, so you are stuck with summaries. I still trust the summaries in some of the well respected journals - Science, Nature and similar. They are checked carefully.

Science News is actually a good source for condensing real journal papers into something normal people can read. But things like popular science, National Geographic, Scientific American, New Scientist. I find not at all trustworthy.

I wish I had a solution to the trust problem, but I don't

All that said, I am convinced that human caused climate change is significant, I have read enough papers, talked to enough scientists that I'm sure - but I don't know how to convince anyone else. Why should the believe me?

Siri137 · Accepted Answer

The science should  never  be trusted, because that's not what it's about, that isn't how it works. The process of uncovering truths about the world we live in involves the questioning of prior beliefs and assumptions, and accepting the reality that one could possibly be wrong, and one cannot effectively do this if one has "faith" in science, the results of science, or scientists.

purplepoppy · Accepted Answer

They risk losing their reputation if they're caught out and given their opponents will go through their work with a fine tooth comb that's highly likely.
I'm sure there's a little data adjustment but I don't think it's enough to totally discard science and rely on Facebook instead.

razelove · Answer

I did research to get grant money for my college tuition. It isn't necessarily that you lie, but can remove what doesn't support the narrative you put forwards. Publish or perish, in my case publish or don't come back next semester.

The risk is about zero as well, as long as everything lines up and all your paperwork is straight it will get published with no one batting an eye. If there is a follow-up study it would likely be on the synthesis, a different analytical method or something, then any discrepancies can be easily explained by different methods instruments, and likely they'll weight theirs to get published too.

I will say that doing research for NASA or anything to do with DARPA has zero wiggle room because of the protocols they lay down. Even in QA/QC you're encouraged to throw out troublesome data sets, and test new samples rather than the old ones after recalibrating, cleaning, what have you.

Science doesn't really follow the scientific method so much when you'll lose money and time to do so. I can only speak to the scientists I knew and myself though, maybe I just live in a den of sin and other scientists are saints, like pfizer or something.

Lliam · Answer

"Studies" should not be automatically accepted. They can be biased or inaccurate for all the reasons you listed.
There is no such thing as scientific consensus. True scientists question everything, and so should non-scientists.

"Mr. Science" Fauci is the biggest liar in the universe.
There were studies that said that smoking was good for you. Margarine, DDT, Roundup, Thalidomide, plastic compounds, fire retardants, ? The list is endless.

Federal agencies accept the word of corporations that their products are safe. Quacks insist that CO2 is warming the planet and must be reduced. We were told that the covid jab was safe and effective. There are endless examples of corruption for profit.

Should we automatically trust the word of reports and studies? Do we take the word of car salesmen when shopping for a car or do we do our own research? What's wrong with reading and studying all the available information for ourselves?

People who take the word of con men are called dupes.

knallpilz · Answer

Science literally relies on mistrust, control and doubt.
Trust in science is the opposite of science.
Science isn't truth or reality, either. It's a model. Science is as close to reality as a map of New York City is close to being New York city. It's just one aspect of the city from a very specific perspective. That is supposed to help us navigate. If there's something on the map that doesn't accurately what's actually there, the map is wrong, not reality.

I don't know if this is because of feminism, but since the 80s there's more and more academics. But that doesn't mean there's more need for academics. Here in Germany, academics started going into the media. But as soon as they realized there wasn't that much money in it anymore, there was a rise of institutionalized pseudo-scientific work, that was government funded. Keeping academics out of unemployment, and providing the government, who subsidized it, with people, whose accolades could potentially serve as legitimization for whatever was needed at the time.

I think there's a lot of money in science, but science is still science. And people are still people.

I had a conversation once, with two friends, about things like these. One friend talked about all he learned in university, and how hard it is to qualify actual facts, and what goes into it, and how to read and understand studies, and the methodology. My other friend, who studied sociology, later told me "Well, the only thing I learned in my uni is how to twist and turn numbers so that what you wanted to say from the beginning looks like fact."

Some people are liars, attentions seekers or opportunists, and the tools are there. As long as you listen to your own bullshit rader (everyone has one of those), you will be relatively immune to that kinda thing, though.

RingOfFire · Answer

Oh yes they lie! And it is not only common it is routine. First of all you have to realize that most of the research at the University level is biased towards the entities that fund it. It is often funded by corporations who have a vested interest in getting certain results, or money funneled through "non-partisan" non-profit organizations many of which are corrupt or secretly are funded by political causes.

So ALL research from these sources is highly susceptible to corruption.

There have been numerous scandals in the research world including a huge one a number of years ago that exposed a coalition of researchers intentionally falsifying data to support "Climate Change" and make it show that it was much worse than it really is. Surprise surprise, it was exposed that they were getting their funding from left wing political organizations who were funneling the money through fake non-partisan organizations.

I had an uncle who is a famous researcher who is credited with one of the most important medical discoveries in history. He was in my father's generation so he is gone now. But we once had a discussion about this very topic and he told me that the research field is filled with intrigue, backstabbing, dishonesty and outright corruption.

Anyone who tells you to blindly "follow the science" is either ignorant, stupid or corrupt.

"Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania behavioral scientist Maurice Schweitzer claimed that the accusations have sent "reverberations in the academic community" as Dr. Gino has "so many collaborators, so many articles," and "is really a leading scholar in the field.""

Wharton is my alma mater so if they say it it is always right. 😉

WindAtMyBack · Answer

I think 'lie' is not the right word. Yes, I'm sure they outright lie at times. But I think mostly it's a matter of bad or premature science. We shouldn't reject the entire body of science just because it's wrong sometimes.

Skepticism is a crucial part of good science. Always questioning what we think we know is a good thing. But simply rejecting science because it might be wrong is not the way to go.

I think a MUCH bigger problem is the way science is reported in the news, and the way the masses believe and react to it. A grad student at a big name university doing research for an advanced degree is not science - or at least it's not mature science. It's just a student practicing basic principles as a learning process.

Yet the media presents it as "the latest study shows...". They fail to stress that it's just one study, that it hasn't been peer reviewed, it hasn't been repeated, it hasn't withstood the test of time. Presenters in the news seem to have no clue about how to interpret scientific studies. They sensationalize it because the viewing public eats it up and gives them good ratings. Good science is not about good ratings.

The original intention of the Internet was to share science between universities, government and the military. But now it's turned into a mass source of misinformation - or maybe misinformed is a better word.

People do not use the Internet to learn about science. They won't spend two minutes verifying things. I see it here at GaG all the time. Someone asks a question which includes a statement of "fact", which should send up bright red flags. Yet people answer as if the statement were true.

I think modern science is pretty damn good. It's not perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than the way the media presents it and the way the people blindly accept anything they hear hook line and sinker.

Anonymous · Answer

I have a masters in physics, doing another one, and did a few years of research. Yes, academicians likewise everyone else are susceptible to corruption. Globally, many scientists make up false data to get recognition, advance their careers, for money from corporate, etc. However, there are systems to deter this, called peer review. Where other scientists rerun those similar experiments and try to validate and reproduce similar results, catch false science.

The system isn't foolproof but it's still better than the belives of a random person with no education of the specific matter.

Scientists are too, just human beings. Most of them aren't even actually competent but trained. You will be surprised that how many professors actually have no proper clue about their subjects. Most read just one book and start thinking of themselves as an expert. As a student, if you call out on those bullshits then they make sure to punish you. One of the reasons why people who become very good scientists later in life, had to go through so many bullocks in academia.

RavVid · Answer

The scientific method is that experiments are repeated and when the same results are achieved than it starts gaining acceptance. That is the protection mechanism. Everybody is fallible.

Fraud is often found in advocacy research. Climate Science is very suspect because models are the test tube and the way they are validated is whether they give similar results. That is a recipe for group think and knob twiddling to get the same result roughly. You could run them against the recent past and see how well the match actuals but if you extrapolate well outside the conditions of that period then perhaps your model fails and garbage in garbage out applies.

Political advocacy kicks in. We have already seen a large number of extreme predictions fail to occur since 1970 or before. As soon as advocacy becomes part of science the science part disappears.

Whatthefluff · Answer

Absolutely. I’ve heard dozens of stories where people confess that most or much research that is published is not worthy of being reliable and replicable, or is fabricated to be trustworthy with unobservant “peer reviews”. It puts a bad taste in my mouth- not only this, but you and I both know that some research is done with a certain agenda in mind; not research for the sake of research. Worries me a lot, because some of us know not to take even formal-acting farces at face value, and many more of us either are not aware of this discord or do not have the energy to leaf through every single detail of every single thing.

Lionman95 · Answer

Though I think no one should be blindly trusted I´d say the change that scientists lie is rather low because lying would mean that they spread false information knowingly. I´d general trust scientists since it´s their job to collect information and reflect and be able to give theories on how to live and how the future will be.
I´d rather say instead of scientists that they are wrong since they make the wrong conclusion from the data they find.
So I the last answer too but because scientists also can make mistakes.

YesterdaysChild · Answer

They get paid, or get funding , for results, not failures. So sometimes they fudge the results to get the answer everyone is looking for, especially those that pay their salaries. Honesty and work ethics are beginning to dwindle in our day and age. I don't put anything past anyone.

FunkyMonkee · Answer

Obviously, some of them do! They've been lying to us for nearly a century about not having a cancer cure when we actually have nearly 400 of them! They've been lying about climate change, which doesn't exist! A couple decades before that we were gonna be dealing with an ice age! They've been telling us all along that aliens don't exist and they've never come here when there's LOADS of evidence for it all around us!! They said covid came from bats and there was no cure when there are actually at least half a dozen cures and we KNOW it was from a lab in China that Fauci paid for with OUR tax money!! They've said we can ONLY run our cars on gas but, we've found out we can actually run them on WATER AND re-use it over and over again!! They've told us COUNTLESS other lies that can be PROVEN to be lies but, THESE are the people you put your trust in?

AviatorTom · Answer

They are human, make mistakes, and sometimes stretch the truth. That's why scientific papers are peer-reviewed by others.

BlackJeep · Answer

It's sad that you always have to check who funded the research to see if there might be an agenda

reds-noro · Answer

Whoops, meant to click answer E, but ended up with C. Oh well, they are essentially the same. I'm all for scientists, they are great. But even with the scientific method, they prove time and time again that they don't understand things fully. Meaning their conclusions can be completely wrong.

And of course some are biased. At least it drives people to try and figure out certain things even if it is just to prove a point.

Drewtate · Answer

Absolutely. I think often studies are funded to confirm certain bias and researchers can essentially put their hand on the scale to tip the scales in that favour. Studies conducted for big pharma is a good example, its why so many kids ended up on ritalin

stepyo99 · Answer

Not only do scientists and scholars lie or are biased and manipulated by politics and their funding sources, but their own research is becoming increasingly difficult to verify and reproduce even if they aren't willfully lying. It's called the replication crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

Science has been replaced by the new religion of "Scientism" in the modern era.

Juxtapose · Answer

Like all things in life, peer review is not perfect. It's amazing we have enough integrity in science for it to even work with how corrupt the power seeking members of our species are. It's like everyone attracted to power is a fucking self-absorbed sociopath.

Astarlessnightsky · Answer

Its true sometimes "scientists" make up stuff, like the guy who invented the "vaccine cause autism" hoax, and sometimes studies get slightly adjusted, because funding is needed and the study didn't produce any results.

The most common "lie" in science is when research is held back and isn't published, eg oil companies knew for many decades fossil fuels are causing global warming, or cigarette companies hid the negative effects of tobacco...

But in terms of eg. climate change 99.7% of research worldwide proves earth is heating up, when so many scientists come to the same conclusion, its safe to assume that this is a fact.

monorprise · Answer

Its funny that you should ask this because if they were real scientist they would say question everything. Just trusting their conclusion is against the scientific method

Unit1 · Answer

Of course there can be errors, lies, mistakes and fabrications among scientific findings just like with everything else. Perhaps one of the most popular ones being the "alpha male" myth. I find most scientific findings to be reliable findings — if they were worded accurately enough.

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