Okay, I’ve been busy. Lots of things I want to post about but they’re taking a long time to write up, so for now, here’s a tidbit from PLoS ONE:

How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data
Fanelli D, 2009 How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5738. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

The study found that around 2% of scientists admitted to falsifying data while around 30% admitted to less serious misconduct.

There are lots of problems with studies like this - lots of confounding factors in self-reporting - that the author acknowledges, but it might be a conservative estimate.

The study doesn’t get into what percentage of studies have some misconduct associated with them (as opposed to how many researches have done it at least once) nor how it might effect the research, but it’s still a problem. I should point out that no one has ever said scientists don’t succumb to this sort of behavior - just that the peer-review system is supposed to catch it. Peer review doesn’t seem to be quite as effective as one would hope (but it’s better than a free-for-all).

The paper also mentions the “Muhammed Ali Effect”, of which I had never heard. It describes the tendency of people to think they are more honest - but not more intelligent - than others. And it’s been the subject of numerous academic papers in various discplines. I had no idea Ali’s reach was so great…