FionaK |
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| http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/11/03/...tter_socialflowThis is a very peculiar story, but not unique. Compare Cyril Burt. A social psychologist has admitted that he did not conduct the "experiments" on which his papers and results were purportedly based. He made up the data. QUOTE The disgraced psychologist has apologized. In a public statement, Stapel writes: "I realize that via this behavior I have left my direct colleagues stunned and angry and put my field, social psychology, in a poor light." No kidding? I have written before about the fact that we should not leave our brains at the door when reading papers and reports of science outcomes: but I admit that that was largely on the interpretation of the results. Like many I have tended to rely on the actual data: because I had assumed that peer review and basic decency meant that the results themselves were to be relied upon. I am sure that is usually true. But fraud exists in every field and it seems clear that it is reasonably easy to do it, at least in social science. What makes that both more likely and more worrying is that social science has a very large political component. There is no way of avoiding that fact, and so the temptations to push your agenda forward through falsification are stronger than they are in natural science. The safeguards should be concomitantly strong: but they are not.
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