Staying Honest, despite being in Academia
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Transcript of Staying Honest, despite being in Academia
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Staying honest, despite being in academia
Leonid Schneider,Independent science journalist
[email protected]: @schneiderleonid
forbetterscience.wordpress.com
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You have the power to make science better!
• Never compromise your own research integrity
• Do not work with cheaters
• Blog about science!
• Engage in post-publication peer review
• Expose irreproducible and bad science
• Report suspected research misconduct
• They are more afraid of you than you of them!
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Post-Publication Peer Review• Publicly available valid criticisms are
much more difficult to be ignored
• Whistle-blowers should consider anonymity/confidentiality when reporting data integrity concerns
• Scientific discussion should be instead signed with your name
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I have some issues with your paper, Sir!
Pros and cons of anonymous PPPR
• Protects whistle-blowers
• Only objective evidence and arguments matter, not who has raised them or why or where
• Unsubstantiated claims, ad hominem attacks
• Sock-puppeting (also by authors!)
Against:
For:
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I have some issues with your paper, Sir!
Pros and cons of signed PPPR
• Is always noticed and taken seriously
• Can become part of your own academic achievements, CV and evaluation
• Possible negative career consequences
• Anonymous trolling in response
Against:
For:
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PPPR needs open data to work properly
• Lead with good example and always deposit original data
• Advocate for institutional data sharing
• Demand data sharing from authors, if you have concerns about their publications
• Do PPPR and sign it!
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How to fake data without getting caught
Leonid Schneider,Independent science journalist
[email protected]: @schneiderleonid
forbetterscience.wordpress.com
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Everyone will be found out eventually
Data manipulations always become known or suspected:
• Through colleagues and former employees
• Through online scrutiny (PubPeer, For Better Science)
• Irreproducibility and disreputability
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The money issueHow to avoid consequences after being caught:
• Become tenured
• Blame someone else (PhD student, postdoc)
• Have large, influential networks of friends and mentors
• Bring lots of funding to your institution
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Photo credit: Maigrot/REA
The perfect crime: Olivier Voinnet
• Plant biologist, specializing on plant-pathogen interaction
• Co-discoverer of siRNA antiviral defense in plants
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The stellar career of Olivier Voinnet
• PhD with Sir David Baulcombe at The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich
• Research director at CNRS institute in Strasbourg (age 33)
• Professor at ETH Zürich (since 2010)
• EMBO Gold Medal (2009)
• EMBO Member
• EMBO Young Investigator grant
• ERC grants
• Max-Rössler-Prize (ETH Zürich, 2013)
• Discovery of siRNA as mobile antiviral silencing signal
• Discovery of siRNA antiviral defense in mammals
• Papers in Science, Cell, PNAS, Nature Genetics, Plant Cell etc
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It started with irregularities in papers from Baulcombe lab
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Olivier Voinnet publications flagged on PubPeer
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Vicki VanceProfessor of Botany, University of South Carolina
Vicki Vance: the key Whistle-Blower in Voinnet case
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• Investigations at CNRS, ETH and EMBO
• Voinnet lost his lab in Strasbourg
• EMBO withdrew Gold Medal
• Funding by SNSF revoked
• some previously corrected papers retracted when more came out
• 8 Retractions
• 18 corrections, likely to grow
Voinnet punished for misconduct
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• External ETH investigator Witold Filipowicz had heavy COI
• Voinnet kept professorship at ETH
• Investigation of PhD thesis (many admitted manipulations) by University of East Anglia bogged down or cancelled
• Voinnet established a paper correction standard: admitting own data manipulations, replacing faked data with new one (“Voinnetting”)
• A fraudulent Science 2006 paper saved from retraction, despite ETH decision
• Cell openly refused to act on several papers with manipulations
But on the plus side…..
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• Olivier Voinnet faked many figures in almost all of his publications
• Mystery as to why he faked data, his original research was declared perfectly fine
• Unfortunately, original unmanipulated images are all lost, but Voinnet faithfully reproduced all results, even >10 years after
• Actually, some of his scientific claims were contradicted by others and Voinnet himself
• Retracting his papers would damage his “junior scientists” who are professors and group leaders now
Official Voinnet narrative
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Shot down at take-off: Robert Ryan
• Plant biologist, specializing on plant-pathogen interaction
• Publishing track record with Maxwell Dow, UCC
Original UCC press release photo replaced with a cartoon, following DMCA take-down claim by Max Dow
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Rise and fall of Robert Ryan
• Postdoc with Maxwell Dow, University College Cork, Ireland
• Started lab at UCC funded by Science Foundation Ireland
• Since 2013, faculty member at University of Dundee
• Wellcome Trust Fellow
• EMBO Young Investigator
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Rise and fall of Robert Ryan
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PubPeer evidence
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Wild theories
• Ryan’s career publicly ruined, without evidence for his exclusive responsibility
• How could senior researcher Dow not notice manipulations in his own papers?
• Was Ryan thrown under the bus to protect Dow?
• Did EMBO investigate Ryan, but keeps it secret?
• Moral: never get caught before fully tenured!
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Ilana Kolodkin-Gal: a peddler of irreproducible and manipulated science
• Microbiologist, specializing on biofilm disassembly
• PhD with Hanna Engelberg-Kulka at Hebrew University Jerusalem
• Postdoc with Richard Losick in Harvard
• Assistant professor at Weizmann Institute, Israel
Photo credit: MSI Harvard
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Reliable research?
• One Retraction in Cell due to irreproducibility
• One (hidden) Correction in Science due to image re-use
• Massive data integrity issues on PubPeer
• Several other papers criticized, both from Engelberg-Kulka and Losick period
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Duplications galore, and some author trolling
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Source: Weizmann Institute
Weizmann seems not to care. Attitude or money issues?
• Several group leaders at Weizmann Institute feature on PubPeer
• Many accusations very serious, some papers were retracted
• At least in one case, all evidence was ignored, no investigation performed
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Thanks:
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Thank you!
Website: https://forbetterscience.wordpress.comEmail: [email protected]: @schneiderleonid