Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flipside on December 24, 2005, 06:15:31 pm
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/15/news/clone.php
Things like this really annoy me, because, if accurate, it puts a smear on all the people who are quietly and patiently working and are in it for the knowledge, not the profit. It's them that always suffer the most for things like this.
Hwang, You-Suck :(
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Had something similar but on a smaller scale happen in a lab I worked in. Someone had forgotten to do his microanalysis on his samples so he just made them up. However he didn't do a very good job and people got suspicious about all his numbers being exactly what they should have been with no deviations.
Faking data is idiotic really. The thing about science is that no paper or research ever stands on its own for eternity. Sooner or later people are going to try and follow that work. When they do, they'll soon notice that the data the faker has presented is bogus and the work the faker did will be discredited. I don't see why anyone would blow their reputation knowing that they will be caught.
Especially if you claim to be one of the first to ever do something that a lot of people are interested in. You might get away with it if you work in some obscure field that no one much researches in but stem cell research is very big right now. Only a fool wouldn't have known that a lot of people would be looking very closely at this paper.
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Indeed, it's cold fusion all over again. They both forgot the first rule of experimentation, it doesn't work unless it works 3 times in a row, preferably in different locations by different people.
I just get concerned that science is so busy worrying about fundamentalism etc at the front door that they don't see capitalism and exploitation sneaking in the back door :(