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Research Fraud at Stanford Confirmed
Related: cognitive bias, cognitive commitment, cognitive dissonance, ethics in medicine, follow the money, follow the self-interest, gear, gears of the machine, rationalization, scientific fraud
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Real science is never settled, and anyone who has certainty on such things is not qualified to discuss it.
Scientific fraud of dozens of kinds is the norm through academia and elsewhere.
2023-07-19 Dear Alum,
I am writing to share a communication from Jerry Yang, Chair of the Stanford University Board of Trustees, regarding Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. This message was sent to the on-campus community of Stanford students, faculty, and staff moments ago.
...Howard E. Wolf, '80
Vice President for Alumni Affairs, Stanford University
President, Stanford Alumni AssociationStatement from Jerry Yang, Chair of the Stanford University Board of Trustees, July 19 2023
...The Special Committee appointed former federal judge Mark Filip and his law firm, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, to lead the review, which included a thorough and impartial evaluation of the facts and issues by a panel of noted scientific leaders (the “Scientific Panel,” whose biographies are here). The review involved dozens of interviews, correspondence with scientific journals, interactions with numerous other organizations, analyses by forensic image specialists, and the consideration of more than 50,000 documents. President Tessier-Lavigne offered his full cooperation and met with the Scientific Panel on multiple occasions.
Report
The Board today released the full report from Mr. Filip and the Scientific Panel, which is available to the public here. We recommend the community read the report for a complete explanation of the review and its conclusions.
...
On the basis of the extensive record collected about the twelve papers, the Scientific Panel did not find evidence to conclude that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne personally engaged in research misconduct, as defined by the federal Office of Research Integrity. Further, the Scientific Panel did not find evidence to conclude that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had actual knowledge of misconduct by others prior to publication of the papers.
With respect to the five papers on which Dr. Tessier-Lavigne was a principal author, the Scientific Panel did find evidence that some members of labs overseen by Dr. Tessier-Lavigne either engaged in inappropriate manipulation of research data or engaged in deficient scientific practices, resulting in significant flaws in those papers. In several instances, when these issues emerged, the Scientific Panel determined that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne took insufficient steps to correct mistakes in the scientific record...
WIND: if Dr Tessier-Lavigne was wholly ignorant of the shenanigans, then he has my empathy for a besmirched reputation, which cannot easily be restored to its former shine. On the other hand, it happened on his watch as a principal author, and the buck has to stop there. Nor is he is not absolved of responsibility of who he chose to associate with. And IMO taking insufficient steps speaks to a serious character deficiency, and I hold him in contempt as a result. Anyone honest who values their reputation will stop at almost nothing to extirpate all ethical issues—apparently he failed to recognize this, and that speaks volumes. Actions speak and only actions speak.
From outright fraud to designing studies to fail or suppressing results or news, it’s one huge venal cesspool. Trusting scientific studies is for children and idiots, and that includes too many doctors.
Nothing is trustworthy anywhere in today’s educational, research, medical fields. The only rational viewpoint is extreme skepticism of all “studies” (often propaganda), research (follow the money), etc. Over time the scientific method will weed out the serious crap, but it can take several lifetimes to kill off bad ideas (like the debunked cholesterol hypothesis, that lives on zombie-like).
