Staying honest, despite being in academia

Leonid Schneider,Independent science journalist

leonid.schneider@gmail.comTwitter: @schneiderleonid

forbetterscience.wordpress.com

You have the power to make science better!

• Never compromise your own research integrity

• Do not work with cheaters

• Blog about science!

• Engage in post-publication peer review

• Expose irreproducible and bad science

• Report suspected research misconduct

• They are more afraid of you than you of them!

Post-Publication Peer Review• Publicly available valid criticisms are

much more difficult to be ignored

• Whistle-blowers should consider anonymity/confidentiality when reporting data integrity concerns

• Scientific discussion should be instead signed with your name

I have some issues with your paper, Sir!

Pros and cons of anonymous PPPR

• Protects whistle-blowers

• Only objective evidence and arguments matter, not who has raised them or why or where

• Unsubstantiated claims, ad hominem attacks

• Sock-puppeting (also by authors!)

Against:

For:

I have some issues with your paper, Sir!

Pros and cons of signed PPPR

• Is always noticed and taken seriously

• Can become part of your own academic achievements, CV and evaluation

• Possible negative career consequences

• Anonymous trolling in response

Against:

For:

PPPR needs open data to work properly

• Lead with good example and always deposit original data

• Advocate for institutional data sharing

• Demand data sharing from authors, if you have concerns about their publications

• Do PPPR and sign it!

How to fake data without getting caught

Leonid Schneider,Independent science journalist

leonid.schneider@gmail.comTwitter: @schneiderleonid

forbetterscience.wordpress.com

Everyone will be found out eventually

Data manipulations always become known or suspected:

• Through colleagues and former employees

• Through online scrutiny (PubPeer, For Better Science)

• Irreproducibility and disreputability

The money issueHow to avoid consequences after being caught:

• Become tenured

• Blame someone else (PhD student, postdoc)

• Have large, influential networks of friends and mentors

• Bring lots of funding to your institution

Photo credit: Maigrot/REA

The perfect crime: Olivier Voinnet

• Plant biologist, specializing on plant-pathogen interaction

• Co-discoverer of siRNA antiviral defense in plants

The stellar career of Olivier Voinnet

• PhD with Sir David Baulcombe at The Sainsbury Laboratory, Norwich

• Research director at CNRS institute in Strasbourg (age 33)

• Professor at ETH Zürich (since 2010)

• EMBO Gold Medal (2009)

• EMBO Member

• EMBO Young Investigator grant

• ERC grants

• Max-Rössler-Prize (ETH Zürich, 2013)

• Discovery of siRNA as mobile antiviral silencing signal

• Discovery of siRNA antiviral defense in mammals

• Papers in Science, Cell, PNAS, Nature Genetics, Plant Cell etc

It started with irregularities in papers from Baulcombe lab

Olivier Voinnet publications flagged on PubPeer

Vicki VanceProfessor of Botany, University of South Carolina

Vicki Vance: the key Whistle-Blower in Voinnet case

• Investigations at CNRS, ETH and EMBO

• Voinnet lost his lab in Strasbourg

• EMBO withdrew Gold Medal

• Funding by SNSF revoked

• some previously corrected papers retracted when more came out

• 8 Retractions

• 18 corrections, likely to grow

Voinnet punished for misconduct

• External ETH investigator Witold Filipowicz had heavy COI

• Voinnet kept professorship at ETH

• Investigation of PhD thesis (many admitted manipulations) by University of East Anglia bogged down or cancelled

• Voinnet established a paper correction standard: admitting own data manipulations, replacing faked data with new one (“Voinnetting”)

• A fraudulent Science 2006 paper saved from retraction, despite ETH decision

• Cell openly refused to act on several papers with manipulations

But on the plus side…..

• Olivier Voinnet faked many figures in almost all of his publications

• Mystery as to why he faked data, his original research was declared perfectly fine

• Unfortunately, original unmanipulated images are all lost, but Voinnet faithfully reproduced all results, even >10 years after

• Actually, some of his scientific claims were contradicted by others and Voinnet himself

• Retracting his papers would damage his “junior scientists” who are professors and group leaders now

Official Voinnet narrative

Shot down at take-off: Robert Ryan

• Plant biologist, specializing on plant-pathogen interaction

• Publishing track record with Maxwell Dow, UCC

Original UCC press release photo replaced with a cartoon, following DMCA take-down claim by Max Dow

Rise and fall of Robert Ryan

• Postdoc with Maxwell Dow, University College Cork, Ireland

• Started lab at UCC funded by Science Foundation Ireland

• Since 2013, faculty member at University of Dundee

• Wellcome Trust Fellow

• EMBO Young Investigator

Rise and fall of Robert Ryan

PubPeer evidence

Wild theories

• Ryan’s career publicly ruined, without evidence for his exclusive responsibility

• How could senior researcher Dow not notice manipulations in his own papers?

• Was Ryan thrown under the bus to protect Dow?

• Did EMBO investigate Ryan, but keeps it secret?

• Moral: never get caught before fully tenured!

Ilana Kolodkin-Gal: a peddler of irreproducible and manipulated science

• Microbiologist, specializing on biofilm disassembly

• PhD with Hanna Engelberg-Kulka at Hebrew University Jerusalem

• Postdoc with Richard Losick in Harvard

• Assistant professor at Weizmann Institute, Israel

Photo credit: MSI Harvard

Reliable research?

• One Retraction in Cell due to irreproducibility

• One (hidden) Correction in Science due to image re-use

• Massive data integrity issues on PubPeer

• Several other papers criticized, both from Engelberg-Kulka and Losick period

Duplications galore, and some author trolling

Source: Weizmann Institute

Weizmann seems not to care. Attitude or money issues?

• Several group leaders at Weizmann Institute feature on PubPeer

• Many accusations very serious, some papers were retracted

• At least in one case, all evidence was ignored, no investigation performed

Thanks:

Thank you!

Website: https://forbetterscience.wordpress.comEmail: leonid.schneider@gmail.comTwitter: @schneiderleonid