Scientists say "sloppy science" more serious than fraud

An article on Nature: INDEX reports on a recent survey of scientists: Cutting corners a bigger problem than research fraud. The subtitle says it all: Scientists are more concerned about the impact of sloppy science than outright scientific fraud.

The survey was published on BioMed Central.

Bouter, L.M., Tijdink, J., Axelsen, N., Martinson, B.C., and ter Riet, G. (2016) Ranking major and minor research misbehaviors: results from a survey among participants of four World Conferences on Research Integrity. Research Integrity and Peer Review, 1(1), 17. [doi: 10.1186/s41073-016-0024-5]

Abstract
Background

Codes of conduct mainly focus on research misconduct that takes the form of fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. However, at the aggregate level, lesser forms of research misbehavior may be more important due to their much higher prevalence. Little is known about what the most frequent research misbehaviors are and what their impact is if they occur.

Methods

A survey was conducted among 1353 attendees of international research integrity conferences. They were asked to score 60 research misbehaviors according to their views on and perceptions of the frequency of occurrence, preventability, impact on truth (validity), and impact on trust between scientists on 5-point scales. We expressed the aggregate level impact as the product of frequency scores and truth, trust and preventability scores, respectively. We ranked misbehaviors based on mean scores. Additionally, relevant demographic and professional background information was collected from participants.

Results

Response was 17% of those who were sent the invitational email and 33% of those who opened it. The rankings suggest that selective reporting, selective citing, and flaws in quality assurance and mentoring are viewed as the major problems of modern research. The “deadly sins” of fabrication and falsification ranked highest on the impact on truth but low to moderate on aggregate level impact on truth, due to their low estimated frequency. Plagiarism is thought to be common but to have little impact on truth although it ranked high on aggregate level impact on trust.

Conclusions

We designed a comprehensive list of 60 major and minor research misbehaviors. Our respondents were much more concerned over sloppy science than about scientific fraud (FFP). In the fostering of responsible conduct of research, we recommend to develop interventions that actively discourage the high ranking misbehaviors from our study.

This is important because science journals and leading scientific societies tend to focus on fraud and retractions as the leading causes of mistrust in science. This survey suggests—correctly in my opinion—that the real problems are far more serious.

Here are the top five problems according to the survey results.

• Selectively cite to enhance your own findings or convictions
• Insufficiently supervise or mentor junior coworkers
• Not publish a valid “negative” study
• Demand or accept an authorship for which one does not qualify
• Selectively cite to please editors, reviewers, or colleagues

If these are the real problems then that puts the leading journals in an awkward position. So far, they have put the blame on scientists and pretended that they are not part of the problem. But if those five problems are the real reasons why scientists and the general public are losing faith in science then the journals themselves are partly to blame (e.g. ENCODE, Arsenic-Life). Science journals need to improve peer review and they need to punish authors and reviewers who allow publication of sloppy science.

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