• vzq@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    I’m optimistic. I think we’re at the beginning of the self-correction stage of the reproducibility crisis.

    It’s not the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. But it could very well be the end of the beginning.

    • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      3 months ago

      Something about potential wide scale fraud came out recently about a prominent Alzheimer’s researcher. This article covers it quite well: https://www.science.org/content/article/research-misconduct-finding-neuroscientist-eliezer-masliah-papers-under-suspicion

      It’s grim, especially when considering the real human cost that fraud in biomedical research has. Despite this, like you, I am also optimistic. This article outlines some of how the initial concerns about this researcher was raised, and how the analysis of his work was done. A lot of it seems pretty unorthodox. For example, one of the people who contributed to this work was a “non-scientist” forensic image expert, who goes by the username Cheshire on the forum PubPeer (his real name is known and mentioned in the article, but I can’t remember it).

    • GiveMemes
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      3 months ago

      Oh I agree! I actually have another comment in this thread where I said I think that more people are excited about uncovering fraudulent work than ever before imo.

      • vzq@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 months ago

        in academia, crimes against scientific integrity are considered particularly heinous. The dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious violations are members of an elite squad known as the Ph.D students. These are their stories.