Peer-review and publication does not guarantee reliable info

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Peer review is not iron-clad—but it’s better than non-peer reviewed.

This went on for twelve years.

Duke University to pay $112.5 million for faking scientific research data

Duke University has agreed to pay $112.5 million to the US government for scientific research misconduct, the Department of Justice announced in a press release on Monday. The fine comes as a result of the university falsifying research on federal grants.

The Department of Justice lays out the background and extent of the fraud. Duke received millions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency every year, but it turns out that the university engaged in over two dozen acts of fraud against the government.

“The settlement resolves allegations that between 2006 and 2018, Duke knowingly submitted and caused to be submitted claims to the NIH and to the EPA that contained falsified or fabricated data or statements in thirty (30) grants, causing the NIH and EPA to pay out grants funds they otherwise would not have,” the release states.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/duke-univ ... arch-data/

The Duke University story has nothing to do with peer review or indeed the integrity of Duke or it's academic staff...

According to the British Medical journal (BMJ) The case refers specifically to 2013 to Erin Potts-Kant, a clinical research coordinator at the Foster Lab which is "loosely affiliated" with Duke. Potts-Kant conducted mouse lung tissue experiments for many Duke departments and external institutes.

She was arrested for spending the laboratory’s research budget on internet purchases, which triggered an investigation by Duke into her research. Subsequent analysis of her data and attempts to reproduce her results found that none of her work dating back to 2006 could be relied on.

Note: the Foster lab was not the recipient of the grants, they were essentially sub-contracted by Duke academic staff to run the trials.

The issue here is the individual in question was working for her own personal benefit and commercial advantage by fabricating lung tissue contamination data to make it look like environmental pollution issues were worse than they actually were so that more money could be funnelled into grants keeping her in business.

Most major universities rely on external laboratories and pathology labs to collect data for them. It represents an element of risk in terms of the control accurate sample analysis being placed in the hands of an outside party...but has nothing to do with peer review

The thing is, this system could easily be improved.

When you’re doing math, you go back over your work by checking it via a different method- do it backwards, use a calculator, whatever. An experiment can be checked by being replicated by changing everything except whatever it is you’re actively testing. Then you can be pretty sure of your assumption.

A good example of this is Milgram’s experiment where participants follow instructions given by a man in a lab coat to pull a lever or push a button. The participants think they are inflicting pain on another person with the lever or button. This experiment was famously replicated with many, many different conditions. So we can confidently say that people do follow instructions from a perceived authority figure, even if they think it is hurting another person. Disturbing, and QUITE useful to know about humans.

Boy, wouldn’t it be great to know more things with such confidence?

BTW...Milgram’s experiment was a social psychology experiment. Social psychology can be sociology or psychology depending on how you look at it. This kind of experiment is no longer deemed ethical, which is why we only get observational or voluntary data now. I was taught that the kind of study that sociologists CAN do now will never be as “good”, data-wise, as they were back when they were, ahem, doing unethical things.