Laws, Sausages and Paying for the Universe: Part I
Lies, Cheats and Obfuscators

by Adam Frank for McGraw-Hill

"One should never see how laws or sausages are made." That's an old saying that expresses an unfortunate fact. Behind the noble and smooth façade of most of our government institutions (which you can think of as the sausage) lies the ugly and unappetizing reality of backroom politics and unsavory deal making (the "parts" that go into the sausage). In spite of (often) good intentions politics, like all human institutions, is necessarily fraught with all the worst parts of human nature. Science is also a human institution. In spite of its noble ideals of dispassionate inquiry and objective research it is still carried out by people with all their failings. Is science, like politics and sausages, something you would rather not see getting made?

Unlike politics, making science is a pretty transparent process. That is what makes it special. Making science means doing research. For astronomers that means going to telescopes, making observations, analyzing the data and finally writing papers about the results. The worth of the paper depends on the skill and insight of the scientists that wrote it. All that skill and insight (or lack of it) should be on display for all to see in the paper. A good scientific paper is clear. Other scientists should be able to see exactly what was done, how it was done and why the authors reached the conclusions they did. In that way science should be very different from politics.

Of course it doesn't always work out so well. For example, it is definitely possible to obfuscate (isn't that a great word). Obfuscation means deliberately muddying the waters so others can't follow what you have done. Obfuscation is a way of keeping people from seeing your steps and hiding your own uncertainty. Fortunately that doesn't go over well with other researchers. "His paper stunk," and "I couldn't understand what he was doing," is often the consensus on that kind of work.

So it is possible to hide the fact that your conclusions are shaky. That however is quite a different thing from actually lying. Do scientists ever lie? Do they ever simply report something that has actually never occurred? Its rare but unfortunately it does exist. One of the most ridiculous cases of fraud in science comes from the 1980s (when a lot of bad things like New Wave music happened). The case involved a biomedical researcher who was studying drugs that helped skin grafting techniques work. His papers claimed that he could transplant the skin from black mice onto white mice without the donor rejecting the new tissue. In an infamous meeting with his supervisors it was discovered that he had been simply painting black patches onto the backs of white mice. Oops. More recently researchers who claim to have found ultra-heavy elements have had the work called into question. Reviews of the studies make it unclear if the research was ever even carried out.

There are a number of different reasons why a scientist, who supposedly dedicated him or herself to truth, would stoop to deception. The first may be simple ego, a desire to make a big discovery and be well known. Discovering a new element would certainly bring fame within the scientific community. The second reason could be money. The "mouse painter" from the '80s stood to gain handsomely if his skin graft drugs were patented. The last reason could be job pressure. Researchers need to produce research, new knowledge, if they want their funding to continue. Sometimes the pressure can drive people to push way past their limits.

Whatever the reasons the most important thing to remember about lies, cheating and fraud in science is that it is amazingly stupid. Eventually it has to get discovered. One of the most attractive aspects of scientific inquiry is that it is, for the most part, self-correcting and self-policing. Sooner or later someone will try to reproduce any piece of research that is important. That means that sooner or later, the lie will be exposed. The lie always is exposed.

Science is a human institution and humans are flawed. The process of science is human too but there is something special about it that offers the hope of transcending those flaws. Unlike sausages, all of us can see how science is made. That is where the hope lies.

Questions to Ponder

  1. Are there other ways in which science reflects human flaws?

  2. Is science truly self-correcting and self-policing?

Websites on Fraud in Science

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