> if everyone is exaggerating their results you have to as well or you will be fired.
Is this really the case the though? Isn't the whole point of tenure (or a big selling point at least) insulating academics from capricious firings?
The big question I have is that there are names on these fraudulent papers, so why are these people still employed? If you generate fictitious data to get published, you should lose any research or teaching job you have, and have to work at McDonald's or a warehouse for the rest of your life. There are plenty of people who want to be professors that we can eliminate the ones who will lie while doing it without losing much (perhaps anything). If your job was funded by taxpayer funds there should be criminal charges associated with willfully and knowingly fabricating data, results, or methods. At that point you're literally lying in order to steal taxpayer funds, it's no different than a city manager embezzling or grabbing a stack of $20 bills out of the cash register.
Yeah I agree with you, I guess I just keep coming back to "make the punishment so eye-wateringly harsh very few people are stupid enough to try it."
Most types of fraud carry a $100-250k monetary penalty and up to 20, 25, 30 years in prison.
The number of people willing to fabricate research data decreases dramatically if you're going to have to pay the grant back from your $20/hr warehouse job after you spend the better part of a decade in a minimum security prison.
The flip side is that if punishments are eye watering harsh then people will be even less willing to inflict them.
Bear in mind also that the vast majority of academic fraud isn’t cut and dried easily proved. It’s p hacking or “accidental” flaws in an analysis, or forgetting to mention some important detail.
Is this really the case the though? Isn't the whole point of tenure (or a big selling point at least) insulating academics from capricious firings?
The big question I have is that there are names on these fraudulent papers, so why are these people still employed? If you generate fictitious data to get published, you should lose any research or teaching job you have, and have to work at McDonald's or a warehouse for the rest of your life. There are plenty of people who want to be professors that we can eliminate the ones who will lie while doing it without losing much (perhaps anything). If your job was funded by taxpayer funds there should be criminal charges associated with willfully and knowingly fabricating data, results, or methods. At that point you're literally lying in order to steal taxpayer funds, it's no different than a city manager embezzling or grabbing a stack of $20 bills out of the cash register.