Talk:List of scientific misconduct incidents/Archive 1

Entry for Ali Akbar Mehrabian in the "Other" section
For several reasons I have deleted this entry. Firstly, despite multiple readings over multiple days I was unable to decipher the text. Secondly, of the sources not directed to a dead/missing link, most could not be verified because they are in a language other than English, which perhaps renders them inappropriate for en-wiki. Thirdly, the single English source suggests that the alleged offense committed by Mehrabian involves theft of intellectual property, and not scientific misconduct per se. Please restore this entry - or better yet, a heavily edited and well-sourced version of it - if you believe it to be appropriate for this article. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:03, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Cranfield University and aircraft cabin contamination
I have removed the entry for a study from researchers at Cranfield University concerning aircraft cabin contamination. None of the three sources used to support this entry identify or otherwise claim any specific evidence of scientific misconduct. Furthermore, the "fudged data" phrase arises directly from a website with clear COI, and is thus unreliable. My admittedly brief on-line search for reliable sources indicating misconduct in this case yielded nothing. Please restore (and expand without editorializing) this entry if reliable sources supporting the commission of scientific misconduct can be located. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:48, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

List size
This list is approaching a size larger than desirable for a list. We need to determine selection criteria. Should inclusion be limited to incidents that have (potential for) an article about either the author or the incident itself? Natureium (talk) 18:59, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Establishing selection criteria seems to me timely and reasonable. I propose the following three criteria for inclusion:
 * * the subject is notable, perhaps operationally defined as having a stand-alone enWiki article, or
 * * the incident(s) of misconduct is itself notable, perhaps operationally defined as above, or
 * * the incident(s) of misconduct involve significant/substantial criminal or professional sanctions (e.g., a finding from ORI of scientific misconduct with attached funding restrictions; prohibitions from publishing in particular journals).
 * These criteria would exclude some of the cases involving students, and those cases for which explicit sanctions are either absent or not identified by RS. The "potential" for either the subject or misconduct incident(s) gaining their own enWiki article is a "smell test" that works for me because it would be subject to consensus, but I suspect some editors would balk because of the subjective judgement/crystal ball quality.
 * As a matter of procedure, once a set of criteria is established here should it be explicitly presented in the article lede? JoJo Anthrax (talk) 20:12, 10 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I would add two more criteria:
 * * misconduct as breach of ethics. And not cases of negligence that is not generally viewed as ill-intended. (there will be a gray line at the edges, I suspect)
 * * proven guilty in some kind of conclusive way. controversial cases where opinions differ might not be included (again, gray at the edges) Jazi Zilber (talk) 13:50, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Your first 3 criteria seem to me to be ways of restating the same thing. Essentially, that inclusion in the list depends on the notability criteria for articles. While it's more difficult to evaluate notability when an article has not yet been written, it's not as nebulous as it might seem. If there are enough high-quality sources on the subject that an article could be written, it fulfills notability criteria for both articles and for this list. Substantial sanctions that are publicly noted would fulfill this criteria as well.
 * I'm not sure that I agree with the last 2 criteria you have listed. These are much more debatable. Determining the motivation for misconduct is not appropriate for editors, and negligence is a breach of the duty of a researcher anyway. Second, what counts as "proven guilty"? A retraction? A report by an investigating committee? I think coverage by reliable sources should be enough. Natureium (talk) 14:32, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Removal of text
I have just removed the following text, added by 88.2.200.198, from the introductory paragraph: "In this article scientific misconduct is considered only in context of approved officially and supported by mass-media condemnations." The reasons for this removal are (a) the grammar is suspect, and (b) use of the word "condemnations" is non-neutral. I note also that defining the contributions to this page as being in some way "approved officially" could be interpreted as a violation of WP:AGF, as it suggests the operation of something other than independent editors citing independent reliable sources. This interpretation is strengthened by the phrase "it's biased" in the edit summary. Seeing that this is the first, and so far only, edit by 88.2.200.198 on enWiki, I invite the editor to engage here in an effort to craft an addition to the article that is clear, neutral (see WP:NPOV), and encyclopedic. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Technology and engineerging
I suggest populating a list of fraud in engineering and technology. Surely there is a large list of fraudulent claims made by tech company CEO's that were impossible to come to fruition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.1.14 (talk) 17:52, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I suggest that you follow WP:BOLD and make those edits yourself. Go for it! JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:53, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Elisabeth Nixon
"Elisabeth Nixon (US), a former student at Ohio State University, had her PhD in anthropology revoked due to plagiarism.[257][258]" She was just a student. What makes her case so exceptional that it must be mentioned here? --Kjalarr (talk) 13:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Jens Förster, Updates
Jens Förster withdrew 3 of his articles (one from Social Psychological and Personality Science (see Retraction notice. Social Psychological and Personality Science, November 24, 2014) two from Journal of Experimental Psychology (see Ehrengerichtsverfahren der DGPs gegen Prof. Dr. Jens Förster eingestellt and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (2009), Relations between perceptual and conceptual scope: How global versus local processing fits a focus on similarity versus dissimilarity and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (2011), Local and global cross-modal influences between vision and hearing, tasting, smelling, or touching.)

The University of Amsterdam asked other journal to withdraw Förster's articles (Press release, Amsterdam University, June 2, 2015). But no additional publications were withdrawn, e.g. from APA's Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (14. b. APA refuses to retract Gillebaart, Förster & Rotteveel (2012) . )

In 2016, the rector of Tel Aviv University, Yaron Oz, asked Prof. Benjamini, a member of the “Israel Statistical Association“, the “American Statistical Association“ and the “Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities“ to examine some papers (from Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) that were co-authored with Prof. Dr. Nira Liberman at Tel Aviv University. Förster cites him as follows: “….I do not see any reason to retract these two papers based on the statistical considerations. The methodology used in the UvA report is in part questionable (V-method) and in part neglect to address the effect of selections – first the order than the papers. In view of the points discussed above the statistical evidence is weak, not even strong enough to pass the 5% threshold for significance used for scientific findings, a threshold often accused of being too permissive. The statistical findings, when corrected and evaluated properly do not show statistically significant support at the usually used level for low data veracity, and in my opinion cannot justify the retraction of these two papers. (...) (see 12. b. No Retractions made by Journals, Articles Remain Published, July 20, 2017.). --Kjalarr (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I have removed your good faith edit - your addition of the word "alledgly" (sic) to the Förster entry - for the following reasons. The claims you make above, regarding alleged statistical analyses performed by an allegedly neutral third party, seem to originate from a biased blog, and as such are not reliable. Additionally, the statements contained in the first ("[Förster was] found responsible for data manipulation") and second ("data in the eight papers show a linearity that is 'too good to be true' and can’t be explained by chance"; "the National Board for Scientific Integrity had concluded that research data had been manipulated") sources used in the Förster entry indicate that Förster's misconduct is not alleged, but actual. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 15:43, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Removal of entry for Steven S. Rosenfeld
I have removed this entry because it contained no sources, and an admittedly brief internet search by me could not find any. Please restore the entry if reliable sources can be found and, of course, added to the text, but until then it should not be included here. FWIW although I will search again later I am not optimistic, as Steven S. Rosenfeld is also devoid of sources, and seems to me a strong candidate for deletion. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:10, 21 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I disagree. There are some good sources for this person. Most are behind paywalls so I haven't reviewed the entire text. One isn't (the Harvard Crimson) and I added that to the Steven S. Rosenfeld article. The paywalled articles include: Science: The Model Student (Time Magazine 1974) and the New York Times: Student's Forgery Perils Key Harvard Research Dec 15, 1974. This has some significance as it helped bring the issue of scientific misconduct into general public view. --Rsjaffe (talk) 18:08, 21 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I think I've now rehabilitated the Steven S. Rosenfeld article. There's still a few references that could go into that--paricularly the Time Magazine and New York Times articles, but since I'm unable to access them, I've left information about them in talk:Steven S. Rosenfeld. Do you think it's ok to add back the entry in this list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsjaffe (talk • contribs) 19:42, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure. Having at least some RS is better than none at all. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 20:50, 21 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've reinstated, with appropriate references to the retraction notices. --Rsjaffe (talk) 02:04, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Burt
Someone should definitely add Sir Cyril Burt to the list. His case is well documented here on Wikipedia and related to intentional, evidenced fabrication of data in support of supposedly foundational results with massive social and political implications.

Burt's early work has not been proven to be false, but there does not either seem to be good reason to 'presume innocence' given Burt's lack of intellectual integrity.

It therefore also throws a question mark on how often personal prejudices/ideology can damage or distort science that is meant to be foundational.

There may be an article on 'the Burt affair' whose openinh someone could plaigarise! ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.2.120.160 (talk) 17:31, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

"world record"
I removed Shigehito Isobe from the list because while the four references provided show that he apparently published the same article four times, there are no references that demonstrate this is actually note-worthy or of any particular importance. If there were a source that said "and in today's listing of scientific misconduct, here's Shigehito Isobe, who published someone else's work four times; that's a record!" then we might be able to add him to the list. Otherwise, there's too much OR going on. Primefac (talk) 13:01, 27 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Since this comment, Applied Physics Letters published an official retraction that clearly lists that the published article significantly overlaps with three other published articles. The authors themselves admit that this degree of duplicate publishing is a serious problem and is their main motivation for retracting their article from Applied Physics Letters. ( source- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4990395). From an educational stance, it is beneficial to add him on the list as this case is rather unusual for the community. I have never heard of someone publishing the same research four times. I added his name back to the list.— Danwormis (talk • contribs) 07:35, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Bruce J. Kelman and Veritox/Globaltox
Can I suggest an addition? The reason much of the population (even many doctors) believe "all mold is harmless" or that there's no such thing as "toxic mold" is because of "defense expert witnesses" paid by insurance firms to discredit the science. Kelman and and his associates have published a bunch of junk science and reviews despite undisclosed conflicts of interest and to much critique--academically, legally, and even in the media. This is notable given just how many people worldwide have likely been affected, at least 5% according to early estimates by Marinkovich (2004) and perhaps even >7% according to McMahon (2017).

Two links if you want to investigate this for yourself:
 * 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_health_issues#Innate_Immune_Activation
 * 2) https://cirs.support/Rehmeyer_Through_the_Shadowlands_ACOEM_Controversy.pdf

(The Wiki section doesn't go into detail, but links to all of the necessary references to understand what happened here. Second link is an excerpt from the science writer Julie Rehmeyer's book, Through the Shadowlands, that summarises parts of this story.) DizzilyDizzily (talk) 23:45, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It's probably better for this page to stick to issues where someone has clearly been found to have faked evidence, rather than where there is a controversy or a difference of opinion or interpretation of evidence. PeepleLikeYou (talk) 03:28, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I can see your point regarding sticking to examples of faked evidence as opposed to deliberately bad science. The Veritox studies aren't about a difference of opinion/interpretation of evidence so much as a deliberate disinformation campaign / insurer-fraud scheme with undisclosed conflicts of interest in order to prevent workers' compensations claims and similar litigation. DizzilyDizzily (talk) 06:23, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Even accepting that it's as bad as you say it is, I still think it's too messy for this page, and is probably best dealt with in the article pages you mention. I would welcome other opinions though, of course. PeepleLikeYou (talk) 02:03, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Brian Wansink entry
Earlier today twice removed the entry for Brian Wansink, claiming firstly that "Wansink is NOT definitely claimed in data fabrication or other definite misconduct types. "having many publications called into question" is not the same as "shown to have fabricated data", and secondly there is "[n]o case of fraud yet. So cannot be included as of now." The first removal was reverted by, and I reverted the second.

I suggest, YechezkelZilber, that you let the entry for Wansink stand, and engage here in a discussion - hopefully leading to a consensus - about whether the entry should, or should not, remain in the article. I believe the entry should remain, and here's why:

Regarding the initial removal of material, Wansink is indeed "definitely claimed" to have committed misconduct by JAMA, as indicated by their public announcements on the matter (which were, by the way, supported in the entry by RS): "[JAMA has] concerns about the validity of [Wansink's] publications;" "[JAMA has requested that Cornell] "conduct an independent evaluation of the articles to determine whether the results are valid." Expressing such concerns, and furthermore calling for an investigation are definite claims of misconduct. Additionally, public claims from an authoritative source - and JAMA unquestionably qualifies as an authoritative source - can reasonably be interpreted as incidents, especially when such claims are reported by a reliable secondary source. The concerns about Wansink's output are thus fairly and appropriately included on a page entitled 'List of scientific misconduct incidents.'

Regarding the second removal, the statement "[n]o case of fraud yet" is not true because there is indeed a case: the concerns expressed by JAMA, AND their request for an investigation. Journals do not publicly announce their concerns about multiple articles from one researcher/author/lab/team lightly, nor do they lightly call for targeted investigations. The case therefore exists, independently of inculpatory or exculpatory evidence.

Lastly, I note that Wansink has had seven of his articles retracted, and that is not a situation consistent with sloppiness...although repeated examples of sloppiness could in principle be defined as misconduct. Having a single article retracted due to an error might be bad/unfortunate/rare luck. But seven?! JoJo Anthrax (talk) 17:04, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I have been following the issue since it started. And I'm well versed with too much of the fine details.


 * 1) There were many issues with his works.
 * 2) he engaged in a wide ranging review of all those works. Published corrections and data of many cases, recovering all kinds of very old datasets.
 * 3) most cases are sloppy reporting and careless data analysis.
 * 4) the JAMA comment does NOT indicate fraud or data fabrication. Even though one can be forgiven for getting the impression. It simply states that too many of his papers were corrected / retracted. So that one can be suspicious about their reliability.
 * 5) you might look at the first critique of his. With "150 numerical errors" which turned out to be maybe 20. And one typo got calculated as 20 (headline number typo makes the whole table wrong)


 * In short: I'm not arguing that the works are good/reliable
 * But the tone and examples of this entry usually tackles fraud/data fabrication. Not sloppy work. Even if it's sloppy enough to cause a JAMA disclaimer. Jazi Zilber (talk) 06:55, 1 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Anyone with anything to add? Jazi Zilber (talk) 12:45, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Just in case anyone gets tempted to remove the Wansink entry again, the results of the Cornell investigation definitely found misconduct: Cornell released a summary of its investigation, in which it stated, "The practices identified included data falsification, a failure to assure data accuracy and integrity, inappropriate attribution of authorship of research publications, inappropriate research methods, failure to obtain necessary research approvals, and dual publication or submission of research findings." Reference: Rsjaffe (talk) 22:53, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Who define what is a scientific misconduct here?
You say in this WikiList this: In Denmark, scientific misconduct is defined as "intention[al] or gross negligence leading to fabrication of the scientific message or a false credit or emphasis given to a scientist", and in Sweden as "intention[al] distortion of the research process by fabrication of data, text, hypothesis, or methods from another researcher's manuscript form or publication; or distortion of the research process in other ways." For this reason, this important understand if only a scientific publication should be linked to misconduct? But when we are in the research process and in this step nobody say nothing?

Such is an example about the Vacunagate case in Peru, I want to invite you to see this atypical misconduct during pandemic of COVID-19. I tried to post this case linked to many medical researchers leading by Germán Málaga but according with Jojo Anthrax is not a scientific misconduct (eliminating my contribution), really? So misconduct not should be limited to falsifying, fabricating, or modifying data because just are few examples about a lack of ethic. When you review the codes of scientific integrity of different countries you recognize it common principles such: transparency, truthfulness, justice, responsibility, objectivity and impartiality to all research process (not just by publish). For this reason, Málaga and others in Peru have violated protocols aprroved by Ethics Committee of the National Institute of Health (Peru), and he has used vaccines from study to make irregularities in the middle of the investigation process. It was not at a vaccine campaign, that incidence was on a clinical trial, in fact he did distortion such research process newsfounded.com/perueng/vacunagate-german-malaga-was-allowed-isolation-for-a-year-from-cayetano-heredia-university-vaccine-covid-19-coronavirus-nndc-time/ manipulating information and acting in bad faith as scientific researcher, however nobody say nothing at respect and what do you say? Really you think that is not a scientific misconduct?

PD: I hope that it would be an antecedent to extend our vision about what is a scientific misconduct to be coherent as researcher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dave0855 (talk • contribs) 23:04, 15 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you for discussing your concerns here, and welcome to the English Wikipedia. As a new editor you are likely unfamiliar with the many policies and guidelines that Wikipedia has established over the years to direct what does, and what does not, appear on its pages. All editors - you, me, everybody - begin as new editors, and learning about those policies and their nuances can be a frustrating and slow process. I will try my best to briefly help you with that process here, and in the end perhaps we can create content that is suitable for inclusion in this article. I would normally post a message like this on your own Talk page, but because article content is being discussed I will post it here. I will be suggesting a fair amount of reading.
 * As written, your original edits appeared to me to contain subjective synthesis (see WP:SYNTH) and original research (see WP:OR). Wikipedia relies solely upon reliable sources (see WP:RS), and excludes content that derives from an editor's own personal/political/ethical/etc. opinions or desires. Your original content contained words like transparency, justice, and responsibility. All of those words are highly subjective, having a broad range of meanings to a broad range of people. Unless such words are directly attached to a specific reliable source related to the topic at hand, they should not be used in Wikipedia's voice. That is, Wikipedia and its editors do not decide what is or is not "justice" vis a vis scientific misconduct, the reliable sources make that decision for us. This is often an extremely difficult aspect of Wikipedia for editors to embrace, but it does not matter if what is being written is right or wrong (see WP:RGW). The only thing that matters is what is reported in reliable sources. You and I might firmly believe, for example, that misconduct not should be limited to falsifying, fabricating, or modifying data, but as editors our personal beliefs are irrelevant. All that matters is what the reliable sources report. I was, and still am, unable to find any reliable sources that attach concepts like justice, responsibility, or even transparency to scientific misconduct.
 * I had a difficult time understanding what, exactly, the subject had done that constituted "scientific misconduct." This is undoubtedly due in part to a language barrier. newsfounded.com/perueng/vacunagate-german-malaga-was-allowed-isolation-for-a-year-from-cayetano-heredia-university-vaccine-covid-19-coronavirus-nndc-time/ This source, which I will assume is reliable, does not make the situation clear (i.e., irregular vaccination of 470 people). Was this "irregularity" related to the clinical activity of vaccinating people, related to a specific scientific/clinical study, both, neither? The only "misconduct" mentioned in that article is ethical misconduct, which is ill-defined and, in any case, is only mentioned as something that is still be investigated.
 * Your comment that I hope that it would be an antecedent to extend our vision about what is a scientific misconduct suggests a desire on your part to add content to Wikipedia that would Right Great Wrongs. As I mentioned above that approach to editing is presented at WP:RGW, and it must be avoided. We editors are not here to extend...vision, but rather to extend reliably-sourced knowledge. The difference is sometimes subtle, but real. You titled this discussion "Who defines what is a scientific misconduct here?" The answer: reliable sources.
 * Going forward, I suggest you create a new, proposed passage that follows WP:RS, and avoids WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, and WP:RGW. Then post it here in this Talk page thread. You, me, and perhaps other editors can review it, suggest/make changes, and once that discussion is complete you can post it to the article.
 * Lastly (I promise!), in Talk page discussions it is good form to sign all of your posts. You do so by typing four consecutive tildes (~) immediately after the final period (.). JoJo Anthrax (talk) 13:56, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

My recent revert
This removal was not based on its merits but removed per WP:BE and because it was more criticism than appears in the actual BLP. Please see Sockpuppet investigations/Arifer for more information. Thanks, — Paleo Neonate  – 23:57, 7 November 2021 (UTC)