Ripples of Misconduct: The Undermining of Scientific Trust

What if the very foundations of scientific institutions were shaky? Join us as we flip the lid on the disconcerting rise in scientific misconduct, a phenomenon that's not just limited to the quantum level but is a stark reality in our daily news. This episode explores the deterioration of trust in esteemed places like Stanford and Harvard, referencing the film Oppenheimer to highlight the gravity of the issue. In the quest for truth, we further expose the threefold increase in retractions, from 40 in 2000 to a staggering 5222 today, a statistic that screams for attention.

Regrettably, scientific fraud isn't a harmless crime contained within the walls of research labs. Its repercussions echo far and wide, as seen with the disastrous fallout of Joachim Boldt's misleading results, a case that led to fatal consequences. Unravel the complex web of scientific misinformation with us, as we dissect the damaging impact of such misconduct on research integrity and our trust in scientific institutions. As we wrap up this episode, we express our heartfelt gratitude to you, our listeners, for accompanying us on this enlightening journey into the belly of the science world. Buckle up, for trust is a fragile thing, and we're here to test its limits.

Chapters

• 0:00 Scientific Misconduct and Oversight in Research
• 7:16 Scientific Fraud and Misinformation Rising
• 25:03 Late Night Podcast Farewell and Thanks

Transcript

John: 0:00

Here's what we're talking about. We're talking about a scientific dishonesty, right? So what's interesting about this for me personally is I watched Oppenheimer and then I watched it again, right, and two times, two times. Look at it. Good to see you. Thanks for jumping on the live stream with us. Yeah, we think we got a good topic in store here. So, yeah, second time I watched it, I watched it with Fred and I was thinking, you know, at least I was portrayed in the movies. There wasn't anyone that was overseeing this group of physicists, right? That's a great movie. I definitely highly endorse it. So I would definitely recommend seeing it.

Denison: 0:53

If you can see it in one of the few IMAX theaters that are in the country that have the. I forgot what the specific ratio it is, but it's supposed to be really, really, really, really like to see it in the perfect deal. It's supposed to be like an IMAX theater, like a specific IMAX theater.

John: 1:15

So what did you think? Did you get to see it that way or no? Oh, no, no, yeah me neither. I did Still look great, right, I did see it in IMAX, but also I'm going to deviate for a second, because it reminds me of Denison. Did you see Mission Impossible yet?

Denison: 1:38

I'm not.

John: 1:39

I think I saw it.

Denison: 1:40

It's impossible, man.

John: 1:42

Every movie suggesting I give Denison. You know he does he's like oh yeah, yeah, definitely doesn't see it. Oh man.

Denison: 1:52

Hey, man, I'm busy. I am busy, you know, yeah, but not too busy.

John: 1:58

See Hoppingheimer, which was a three hour movie, anyway, let's give you a hard time, but 75 millimeter film is what Catherine's saying. So that's it. But yes, really, what I'm saying with this is that no one was there to give oversight, really, for Hoppingheimer, right? Of course that's understandable, right, there was no one smarter on quantum research than him. You know what I mean At the time. And so, yeah, I mean it's interesting, I was just thinking about that. There's no oversight for these people who are dictating not dictating, but just giving us explanations for why things happen, right?

John: 2:46

So this is where today's topic comes in, the Guardian, which I will say has a history of blowing things out of proportion, although I will not say that's what they're doing on this one, I don't know. But you know, regardless of that, I still will take this for Westworth. But they have reports of scientific misconduct, with significant cases at Stanford and Harvard. Stanford's president resigned after investigations highlighted issues in his research, but he didn't falsify any data. So that's different. A guy in Harvard Business School faced accusations of false, fine research on get this honesty right, which is interesting, that's a very interesting.

John: 3:48

Right, and so our discussion tonight doesn't have to be about things on the quantum level, right? A lot of these things are stuff that you get in your news feed on a daily basis, right? Like? A new study shows that apples are 80% more likely, if eaten every day, to keep the doctor away, but that research could have been falsified. Yeah, that's true. This one was trying not to laugh more on that, it was funny, but yeah. So I think it's important that we can trust in these scientific institutions, and that's what makes this story so interesting. So I say we go ahead and slap right into it. What's going on? Everybody, I'm John and I'm Denison, and this is the catch up.

John: 5:11

Before we get back into our topic tonight, I want to remind you guys of three best ways to support this show. Gotta wait for the props. There's your three, there's intro into three, but number one, of course. Okay, I was confused as to what that was at first. Number one is leave us a rating review, let us know what you think of each episode and the show as a whole. Every rating review helps us grow wherever you're listening, wherever you're watching and subscribe if you like. It says well, number two, or a toa. That's actually three. My bad, oh, a wash, that thing was Chris. All right, all right. So number two is If you're listening on the audio, thank you, thank you, sure, we got that. If you're listening on the audio, you're gonna want to jump on the Facebook or the YouTube with us. We go live every single week and if you subscribe or give us a follow, you can jump on and join the discussion with us in real time. It's something that we've really enjoyed doing and I'd love to get your feedback as we discussed. And number three oh my gosh, the USB drive. That's a. It's a unique addition to this count. Number three If you want to support us monetarily, because it does cost to put this show on, we have really good, solid, quality, clean merchandise at the link below, wherever you're listening, wherever you're watching, we got shirts, we got hats, we got long sleeves, hoodies if you want to prepare for the winter really early, and we also have phone cases, mugs and a little bit more.

John: 7:06

Man. There you go, there's all three right there. So, all right, let's. Let's roll back into this discussion, man. So, as I said, those are just some examples of, you know, scientific negligence, I guess. So a watchdog website called retraction watch has reported on numerous incident instances of misconduct and knowing that most who don't occur at institutions like Stanford or Harvard but retraction sign as in, you know you have to retract your statement and fix it. Have searched from 40 in 2000 to 5222. That's a gigantic increase.

Denison: 7:51

Yeah, it's a very big jump.

John: 7:54

What are these people doing? Playing Candy Crush While they're splitting atoms?

Denison: 7:59

no, they're just making all the claims, man, all the claim.

John: 8:04

Yeah, yeah, you know what I think it did. I think it created a Pokemon in real life.

Denison: 8:10

That's not true, actually my bad, it was a fever dream right.

John: 8:17

So, according to this article that we're referencing, that may actually be an underestimation of the actual amount of misconduct. There could be more. That's even, I would think. Well, actually, I want to ask you which Catherine's calling these alternative facts? I want to wish oh, that's the Scientific claims or alternative facts? I feel that. So tell me, man, what do you think is causing the spikes and misinformation, the what's different about 2022 Versus 2000?

Denison: 8:58

I Mean I think there's a lot you know, especially when it comes to because it was 2000, the year 2000, I mean there's been a lot that's happened and you know to you know the two decades, essentially Because I mean you have the age of social media. Information is far more available to users than they have then it has ever been, especially in the 2000s right, it was just infant stages of the internet, and then Also, I think there's so much buzz around different scientific studies that people are just clamoring for at least my opinion is that people are just claiming for more and more published studies to come out or whatever like that, and for more and more people just to read that cool headline. Right, more news outlets looking for that really cool headline. Like you know, three in the recent studies stated that three in five people may experience a fright in their living room in the next 10 days, or something like that.

John: 10:22

Whoa a fright, but it's not a true story, by the way, against your lucks, man.

Denison: 10:32

So you know, I think there's a lot of news outlets that are just super gung-ho about like jumping into that process and I think the studies are kind of following into that same foot, into those same footsteps, where they're publishing more info out before it's like fully vetted and stuff, because you know it's a lot of recanting their statements or something similar to that.

John: 10:59

Yeah, no, I feel that, man. Well, according to this, according to this study, two main factors contribute to this spike Volunteers who scrutinize academic literature for inconsistencies, which I guess was not happening back then in 2000. And the realization by publishers that their models are vulnerable to paper mills that sell entire research materials. So paper mills was in quotes, but yeah, those research materials could go out. So let's look at this in a different scope. Right, like red wine bad for you, red wine good for you, red wine bad for you, right? This could be a why they didn't have as much oversight back then as they do now. So now there's more concern, kind of like what you were saying, and more oversight now too, which would lead to more issues being found. So it makes you wonder what have we learned, or thought we learned, from decades old research? I believe that those issues would probably have come to light, because usually those are public issues, public research that can be studied and looked over. Well, I find that really interesting.

John: 12:29

Catherine says conjecture and opinion have been allowed to be held at the same time at the same level of scientific results. That can be repeated by scientific method. That's true. It depends on the theory, right? Certain theories get more publicity than others, like the theory of relativity, right. We basically take the theory of gravity. It's a theory, right, but I think we all experience it every day, you know. So, yeah, those type of things. But then other things, yeah, you have to have proven and are able to prove right. You can't prove or disprove gravity with at least what they had when the theory was first devised, if you will.

Denison: 13:19

Yeah, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

John: 13:23

But yeah, according to this, gravity is both a theory and a law. The law of gravity calculates the amount of attraction, while the theory describes why objects attract each other in the first place. That's really interesting. It's both, you know.

Denison: 13:42

That is interesting. It's just the different sides in which you're looking at it. One is, I guess the factoid portion of it is more like this is exactly what we can observe, and then the rest of it is more along the lines of based on what we have observed, this is our opinion or thought process of how and why things do what they do, or whatever like that when it comes to gravity. So that is a really cool way to think about it, One that I haven't really thought of, you know.

John: 14:19

Sure, yeah, I find that all interesting. So this is scientific fraud, which is what I was leaning into on this. Scientific fraud isn't just a professional issue. It can endanger lives, as seen in the case of Joaquin Bolt. His misleading results on a blood substitute had fatal consequences. A blood substitute, bro. This dude was trying to be like ah, you need blood? Don't have it, but try this peanut butter instead.

Denison: 14:59

Yeah, you'll be good, you'll be right as rain.

John: 15:02

Yeah, right as rain. So this is a German anesthesiologist who no-transcript he has 186 retractions and is the highest. He has the most retractions of anyone. Oh, wow, yeah. So he studied a blood substitute that was used in hospitals across Europe. His results, which were published around 1990 and 2009 and widely cited, suggested that the product used to help keep blood pressure in the delivery of oxygen to cells adequate with saving lives. After his fraud came to light and researchers reanalyzed all the available data, while leaving Bull's results out, it turned out the opposite was true the substitute was associated with a significant increased risk of mortality and acute kidney injury. Oh, wow, that's insane man.

Denison: 16:07

That is, that is you know, and this really kind of talks more about the need for peer review, right? Because?

John: 16:25

Which is part of the scientific method, by the way, it is.

Denison: 16:28

It is. Everybody gets so gung-ho about their results that they kind of skip that portion. But I think it's so important that the peer review stage of these studies gets properly pursued, because you get moments where you're having to retract your statement because after peer review they've seen the flaws in their experiment or the flaws in how they were researching things or if there was bias or anything like that. It shows up there, usually right, and kind of like Pardon me Kind of like the fact that more people are able to access these studies than they were before.

Denison: 17:23

there is a higher percentage of plenty of researchers being able to jump in from across the world to be able to jump in on these studies and look at them and scrutinize them and review them and say like, ah no, this isn't working.

John: 17:38

You know they do it in a quicker amount of time too, correct, correct. Yeah, there's a scene in Oppenheimer where he waits. Well, he has to go to Princeton to talk to Albert Einstein to ask him what he thinks about his findings, and it results to nuclear fusion, right, or fission Dang it, I always do that, but no worries. But yeah, that's what makes it different. That's also what makes it surprising to me that they are so much higher. It should be easier than ever to oversee this kind of stuff. Yeah.

Denison: 18:24

Yeah, you would think. But I mean, there's tons of people who are doing research, right?

John: 18:32

That's true. It could just be a flat line, because they're all able to be more busy with their studies, you know.

Denison: 18:39

Yeah, yeah, exactly. We live in an age where it's so much easier because of technology to bring more people in to do different types of studies and stuff like that. Think about it If you need to research something that, at least for the most part, you just needed people's verbal communication, you can easily do that just via Teams or Zoom. Never before was really an easy way to do it. I mean sure you can get on the phone and call someone, but it's not going to be the same as doing a Zoom call or a Teams call. You have that face-to-face interaction going.

John: 19:22

Definitely yeah, and to the point you're making too. This is interesting to me. Publishers and journals have been criticized for slow responses, with some retractions delayed for years. Universities often investigate allegations internally, which might not ensure unbiased results. Of course I get that, but yeah, it seems like there's a reluctancy, maybe even among the scientific community, of not wanting to rat people out for being wrong or just being too self-focused on their own works. I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting man.

Denison: 20:16

Yeah, it is. I know we were talking about this a little bit earlier, but it's kind of like the great example of this I feel like is there's a. There was an article that came out about a week ago or so about a team of researchers that had found a material that is able to be a superconductor at room temperature. Why this is so significant is because superconductors for them to be able to do their really really cool properties of levitation and some other in superposition or whatever like that there's a couple other things that they can do, but essentially the only way for that to happen is for them to be incredibly cooled to a high amount, right To a huge degree. That takes a lot of energy and a lot of time and a lot of effort to get it cooled down like that. Then, even past that point, you can't really do as much with it as it starts to thaw. With all that being said, if it was found out later on this week or earlier this week, I should say it was found that that study was incorrect.

John: 21:56

Oh wow, that's a big deal, man, especially with that being a blossoming technology.

Denison: 22:05

One that could revolutionize how you do a lot of things honestly.

John: 22:11

Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. It's just one of those things where truth is hard to find. I'm not saying that's anything new, but there's just more outlets, more content always being fed your way. I think it's just, I don't know. This is how I approach this kind of stuff. Right, because this is an obvious problem. Right, if you get one of those alerts as hey, someone just blah, blah, blah this and that, right, I feel like you got to take it for your word. But on certain things it's easy to question. I take the Alzheimer's drug, for example. Right, it makes sense, it's based off of other drugs and they've had a lot of studies with a lot of efficacy. I think medication is different because they have to go through so many control groups and there's a whole FDA, a lot of oversight. But with certain other things, an Apple a day may not actually be the best thing for you, man. If it works for you, it's like I don't know, man.

Denison: 23:29

What's an Apple going to do to you?

John: 23:30

You know what I mean.

Denison: 23:32

Yeah, I get that.

John: 23:35

Anyway, I don't know, this is just my thoughts, man, do you have any other thoughts you want to add?

Denison: 23:41

You know, I think it just kind of feeds into something that I think we've continuously touched on over this time is that not everything that you see article-wise or scientific study-wise can always be instantly proven or not proven, but instantly trusted. Right, you always want to do your own due diligence. If you don't feel comfortable with what you find or feel like you're not able to get as far in it as you would like, I always try to tell people to maybe not say that that's exactly what's going on, right, then and there. Sometimes it does really require that due diligence of researching whatever that topic is and then comparing and contrasting to what these articles are saying or what these studies are saying, and then you can kind of form your own opinion Exactly.

John: 24:49

Yeah, I completely agree with that. You know, it just also depends on the subject, but I think a lot of those things, I really think that's worth your while, you know, doing your own research. So yeah, great discussion. I think we had a great discussion on this late night podcast. Thank you guys for joining us, for the comments, for the viewers, for listening and watching with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much and we'll catch up with you next week.