Update June 5
Standards, who needs them? I am just back from the E-MRS spring meeting in Strasbourg, which was most enjoyable, though someone seems to have forgotten about the “Spring” bit. Meanwhile, out in the world of science we continue to witness ridiculous decisions regarding manipulated and falsified data by journals and a quite stunning self-justification by a materials scientist who looks to be the next serial fraudster.
First up, the much heralded stem cell paper in Cell, three days from submission to acceptance, which readers spotted was full of manipulated images. Cell pulls the “Dictionary of Euphemisms” off the shelf, makes some weak excuses, hoping that we will all move one. Nice posts on Retraction Watch with extended comments here and here.
Second Retraction Watch reports on the outcome of an investigation by McGill of papers published by Maya Saleh. It is worth quoting once again the conclusions regarding a PNAS and a Nature paper of Salaeh’s:
What happens? Nature issues corrections.
Amazing really. Just think. A student cheats, is formally investigated and found to have indeed cheated. The student is then is allowed to “correct” their work, outside the exam and at their leisure. Makes sense every time.
Are we wasting out time bringing these problems to the fore? NO. One only has to remember three things:
1. This is public money being spent.
2. The amount of non-reproducible science published, which I posted on recently here.
2. Science fraud has the potential to kill people, see my posts on Anil Potti and the links therein here and here.
Now to the fake blog the reason for this update.
Fake blog here.
Real blog here.
I was quite fascinated, as I read it because I felt that I was getting a first hand insight into the mind of a science fraudster. I went to re-read the interview in the New York Times of Stapel, the fraudulent psychologist by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. The arrogance and method are remarkably similar. The self-justification too. Reading the fake blog I got a feeling I was reading part of the transcript of Stapel’s interview.
Update 3 November 2013
Ferniglab Blog 
These are very strong accusations, I assume you will post some evidence that Stellacci is writing the ‘fake’ blog?
The evidence for the authorship of the Fake blog is circumstantial. I have put forward my view that it is Stellacci, if it isn’t, then I will happily admit I was wrong on this. I fully subscribe to the Feynman approach to science.
In contrast, recall that that Fraud is to intentionally deceive for personal gain. That fits the data and significantly nothing from the Stellacci lab suggests that the stripes are anything than an artefact. The misconduct in papers and the continued benefit drawn from the misconduct and the artefact leads to the charge of Fraud.
Update June 5 due to lack of data forth coming on the identity of the author of the fake blog and fake tweeter.
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