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| Re: <nettime> Netizens expose scientific fraud in South Korea [2x] |
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Re: <nettime> Netizens expose scientific fraud in South Korea [2x]
"Joanne Mule" <[email protected]>
Re: <nettime> Netizens expose scientific fraud in South Korea [2x]
John Hopkins <[email protected]>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 16:04:12 -0500
From: "Joanne Mule" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Netizens expose scientific fraud in South Korea [2x]
Ronda,
I see your point. Online, people have time to write and get more specific
detail on a subject and put much more thought into it. I have been able to
get more details online about a particular event than I could have gotten
out of the newspaper or on t.v. In addition, one is able to access
worldwide sources from one location where previously we could not. It is
quite incredible. Thanks for your insight.
>From: nettime's message splicer <[email protected]>
>Reply-To: nettime's message splicer <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: <nettime> Netizens expose scientific fraud in South Korea [2x]
>Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 10:48:22 -0500
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 19:09:59 -0700
From: John Hopkins <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Netizens expose scientific fraud in South Korea [2x]
>To the contrary. Without netizens at the scientific web sites being
>able to post their critique of the fraudulent papers they would not
>have been able to expose the fraud.
Romantic as this might seem, I have seen no evidence that the chatter
on blog sites in any way changed or revolutionized what is a
relatively routine process of peer-review. In all the comments below
- -- keep in mind there is a HUGE difference between the process of
journalistic reporting on a scandal, and the process of peer-review.
As a regular reader of Science journal, the retraction of a paper,
while unfortunate, is not a ground-breaking occurrence. It happens
on a regular basis. Science (the journal) has given the Korea issue
good critical coverage from the beginning. Sure, nobody likes a
retraction, but the mechanism is not controlled by Science. The
editorial staff of course looks carefully at the issues, but it is
the peer-review process that is ultimately the arbiter -- and that
process is not controlled by anything but the international community
of scientists doing research relevant to the paper in question.
The weakness in the original article (published in February 2005) was
already under heavy scrutiny before publication, and began to unravel
publicly when the journal Nature published a heavy attack on ethical
grounds in early May 2005.
While prestige is as common in science as in any social endeavor, in
general, the scientific community does exhibit a degree of
self-censorship that is probably unique among transnational social
systems.
((Imagine if the art world had peer-reviewed curation?))
Yes, sure, there is the opposite issue of the lone scientist bucking
the trend, hated and made fun of by colleagues for outlandish notions
- -- scientific disciplines can be myopic -- until experimental data
proves him right. So the monolithic structures can fall to the
revolutionary notions of the loner. Very romantic. Don Quixote.
No doubt, in this age, science is a religion, and its tenets are
often held to irrationally (especially by the public who often has
little or no clue about what is actually going on). A good example
is the incredibly slow adoption of the consequences of a Quantum
Physical view of the world versus a 300-year-old Newtonian view by
the general public. Holding on to ideas as static objects is a
hopeless but generally popular way to live.
And though any scientist would admit that the pressures to produce
(for funding purposes mainly) does take its toll in the form of
sloppy experimentation and data-taking, peer-review is a powerful
leveling mechanism. It is rarely a back-slapping-nod-and-a-wink
kind of process -- for several reasons -- 1) ones peers may be
directly competing with you for funding, so proving an other's
research to be faulty is a big plus; 2) by supporting faulty research
in the peer review process, one becomes culpable immediately if the
research is shown by others to be faulty -- possibly a serious career
blow; 3) scientific research generally likes to be on solid ground
for further advances -- an experiment that is not repeatable in
several labs comes under tremendous scrutiny for the simple reason
that on one wants to follow a dead-end research path built on a
faulty premise.
Big science, like any other high-rolling social enterprise is not for
those unwilling to become the focal point for intense scrutiny. The
scientific community surfaces many scandals often related to money,
but usually the scandal surfaces first in falsified data, not in
straight-forward theft of funds. If the scientist or lab is big
enough, then the public becomes aware of the fact -- especially if
the research funding is from the state. The fact that this latest
scandal made the blogosphere at all relates to 1) the wide-reaching
power of the pharmo-genetic industry in this era; 2) consequently the
large sums of money/power involved in genetic research; 3) the
intensity of the competition for those funds; and 4) the passing
interest in the wider population in titillating research into cloning
and other more onerous forms of eugenic research.
Genetics is the next-big-thing (as many pundits have already noticed)
in terms of a global industrial gold-rush -- why else is there
intense national competition to attract the top researchers; why else
did California (the world's 6th largest economy) skip the right-wing
rhetoric about stem-cell research and start its own R&D initiative;
why was Bush ultimately shut-up on the stem-cell issue -- because
there's so damn much money at stake.
>A TV program tried to expose some of it but was accused of not being
>able to challenge a paper that had been accepted by the journal Science.
>
>But scientists at scientific online web sites could explain the problems
>in the papers, and also have this information spread to others online.
>
>This was a key ingredient in the exposure coming to light.
Scientists have used networks both analog and digital for years
(decades, centuries) to argue and discuss. This is not a
contemporary 'netizen' phenomena...
>The South Korean government, a tv program and others in the power
>structure were backing the scientists and to get this fraud unearthed
>meant going against the power structure.
Those structures had absolutely no power over the peer-review process
of the journal Science. The only power was in the momentary desire
by peer scientists that the research was indeed viable -- they wanted
it to be true, because of the spectacular consequences in the hot
research field, but once the small mistakes (in graphics) were
pointed out, the entire paper came under intense scrutiny by anybody
involved in that branch of research. Public pressure was not a
factor in the 'outing.'
>Not an easy undertaking in any society. And with the prestige of a
>scientific journal behind the scientist whose work was fraudulent,
>this made it even more difficult.
While I understand your belief in this position, I think you do not
have a clear understanding of the relation scientific funding,
publication, and peer-review.
>This is where we disagree.
>
>I do not think it would have been possible to have been able to
>demonstrate the nature of the fraud of the articles published in
>'Science" and then to have spread this knowledge sufficiently so that
>the powers that be would have to acknoweldge the problem.
It is absolutely possible, and it happens all the time -- it's only
that a wider audience became aware of the mechanism...
Cheers
John
PS -- it will be interesting to see if, with the intense interest in
the procedure thought to be discovered by Woo Suk Hwang and Shin
Yong Moon -- that new research arises (and possibly vindicates
them!). They were caught by procedural (and ethical) issues, not on
the (possible) viability of their original ideas... Hwang is no
slouch.
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