JJ Tyson

720467726
1. This article revolves around increasingly problematic methods which are
used to publish scientific research, namely psychology studies. One major point
of the article is that academic fraud is on the rise. According to a report in the
journal Nature, retraction of study results has risen by over 1200% in the past
decade; the overall number of published scientific studies has risen by only 44%.
The other major point of the article is the need for change in how scientists
publish their findings. Because popular journals tend to favor new and exciting
findings, there is enormous pressure for researchers to come up with positive
results. If the scientific community does not make some kind of change to the
research-publication process, problems with academic misconduct are likely to
increase.

2.

When evaluating the moral equivalence between selective publishing (ie.

Cherry Picking) and outright falsification of data, it is important to put oneself in

the position of the researcher. Lets say that you are a university scientist looking
for a link between eye color and hours spent watching TV. When the study is
complete, you find that there is no correlation between the two variables for blue
or brown-eyed people. However, you find that people with green eyes seem to
watch significantly more television than those with other eye colors. While it would
obviously be preferable to present the entirety of your findings, this could
jeopardize the publication of your work, so you choose to cherry pick and only
publish the green-eyed statistics. This could be seen as unethical, however, these

scientists are working in a broken system which rewards positive findings and
ignores negative ones. How can we expect scientists not to selectively report data
when their livelihood depends on being published by heavily biased publications?
While I believe that researchers caught falsifying data should be fired, I think the
methods of scientific publication need to be changed. Until the system is revised
to be inclusive of negative findings, I do not believe we should fault researchers
for selective reporting, and I certainly do not think it should be equivocated to
outright falsification of data.

3.

One idea to quell the recent surge in scientific misconduct is to require

researchers to post their data online. Dr. Simonsohn from the article says instating
this initiative would allow for better peer review and in turn, reduce instances of
academic fraud. Another course of action would be to require scientific journals to
publish a certain number of negative findings and repeated studies in each
published edition. In order for this idea to work properly, the approximate
percentage of non-positive articles would need to be agreed upon and adopted by
most or all major scientific journals. This could be accomplished via a UN-esque
symposium which would allow for open and honest discussion and debate.
Hopefully, such discourse would allow for journals and scientists to reach a
compromise that is beneficial to scientists, journals, and the public at large.
However, if we continue to ignore the problem, the tangled web of poor research
practices and exclusivistic publication will continue to plague the scientific
community.