Anyone with even a slight knowledge of the charlatanry that has been exposed in the so-called 'scientific' world of global warming will suspect already that the phrase 'scientific ethics' is now an in-house joke. Of course, many learn-ed opponents of the 'warmers' have dismissed them as not being truly scientific at all in the rigorous sense of the word, but now I read of behaviour in a branch of very real science and, moreover, unlike so-called global warming, this is one of critical importance to us all.
According to a story at Yahoo News, a former Head of Research at Amgen, a huge international biotechnology company with headquarters in California, has announced that during his ten years in this position he checked out 53 "landmarked" papers from reputable labs published in top medical science journals under their supposedly strict rules which govern checking and peer-reviewing of new scientific papers. The man concerned, Glenn Begley, said that of those 53 papers making claims that such and such a procedure had efficacious results in the treatment of cancer, 47 of them were impossible to replicate in laboratory tests! Another giant bio company, Bayer, had similarly pathetic results according to the Yahoo report:
Scientists at Bayer did not have much more success. In a 2011 paper titled, "Believe it or not," they analyzed in-house projects that built on "exciting published data" from basic science studies. "Often, key data could not be reproduced," wrote Khusru Asadullah, vice president and head of target discovery at Bayer HealthCare in Berlin, and colleagues.
Of 47 cancer projects at Bayer during 2011, less than one-quarter could reproduce previously reported findings, despite the efforts of three or four scientists working full time for up to a year. Bayer dropped the projects.
Begley suggests that there is in the scientific community a widely held belief that anything published in a prestigious journal must be right and reliable. Nothing, apparently, could be further from the truth which, I might add, any old global warming sceptic (er, like me) could have told them years ago!
The problem goes beyond cancer.
On Tuesday, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences heard testimony that the number of scientific papers that had to be retracted increased more than tenfold over the last decade; the number of journal articles published rose only 44 percent.
Ferric Fang of the University of Washington, speaking to the panel, said he blamed a hypercompetitive academic environment that fosters poor science and even fraud, as too many researchers compete for diminishing funding.
Ah yes, that naughty 'F' word - Funding!
"The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high-profile journal," said Fang. "This is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior."
The academic reward system discourages efforts to ensure a finding was not a fluke. Nor is there an incentive to verify someone else's discovery. As recently as the late 1990s, most potential cancer-drug targets were backed by 100 to 200 publications. Now each may have fewer than half a dozen.
"If you can write it up and get it published you're not even thinking of reproducibility," said Ken Kaitin, director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. "You make an observation and move on. There is no incentive to find out it was wrong."
All of which brings us back to bankers who appear to be on a par with medical research scientists!
Ferric Fang ......
Where can I get one of these?
Posted by: Andra | Tuesday, 03 April 2012 at 00:23
Hmm, from my personal experience the problem isn't a "hypercompetitive academic environment" it's the utter lack of it (as opposed to in the past). The current problem results from 'fashionable theories and ideologies'. So, as with warble gloaming, those employed by the 'reputable journals' (who subscribe to these beliefs) select only those 'scientists' (who also subscribe) to do peer reviews. (Peer review used to be a 'traumatic experience', to say the least. With every reviewer attempting assiduously to destroy and ridicule any work that anyone, not themselves, had the temerity to try and publish).
The result? Anything which fits with their ideology is published anything which refutes or even challenges it disappears into obscurity (occasionally published in other scientific disciplines, or some obscure foreign, journal).
As you say, it's fraud - but intentional and institutional.
Posted by: Able | Tuesday, 03 April 2012 at 03:33
Andra, his love bites are ferocious, so they say!
Alas, all too true, Able.
Posted by: David Duff | Tuesday, 03 April 2012 at 08:30
It’s a real problem and I don’t see a solution.
Funding attracts the wrong people and corrupts most of the others. Raise your voice in protest and you are out of a job. Take it just a little too far and your pension can go too. Much funding seems to be explicitly tied to existing policies which is a recipe for thinly-veiled fraud. So that’s what we get.
Posted by: A K Haart | Tuesday, 03 April 2012 at 12:21
Remember that every time a crook works the system to get research grants that he didn't deserve, he becomes likelier to be promoted until he's in charge of the system.
Posted by: dearieme | Tuesday, 03 April 2012 at 15:47
I was feeling fairly cheerful until I read the last two comments!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 04 April 2012 at 08:37