From skimming the PSU story, it looks like there might be a political factor in that one. I wonder if the same objections would have been raised had his research goal been to expose sexism in acceptance rates of science journals or somehing, rather than expose gender studies as nonsense.
> A fake paper is fabricated research, which falls under the definition of misconduct.
I think it's the same argument as with satire. The goal is not to defraud but to make a legitimate point. There is no mens rea.
The whole affair seem to thoroughly politicized. The results are presented as if "grievance studies" should be particularly prone to publishing hoax papers, but there is no control used as far as I can tell, so who knows if other studies or disciplines or better or worse? Medicine certainly also seems to be vulnerable. Maybe the whole of academia and research has a problem with peer review and bad-quality journals?
Science is different from satire. It is great satire to get a passage from Mein Kampf accepted by a feminist journal - but is it valid scientific research?
I'd say his goal was clearly to make a political point, not a scientific discovery. But making political points is not unethical behavior.
As for the difference between science and satire, I think you missed my point. Which is that the argument is the same (i.e. mens rea, meaning intent to commit a crime), not the actual act.
Obviously "making a point" or "satire" is not a valid justification for scientific fraud. Otherwise anyone caught in plagiarism or whatever could just use that excuse to avoid consequences.
But if fraudulent or manipulated articles were used as part of legitimate research to study failures in the scientific system itself, it could be justified. But obviously it would have to be handled as serious research, itself peer reviewed and so on.
Obviously "making a point" or "satire" is not a valid justification for scientific fraud. Otherwise anyone caught in plagiarism or whatever could just use that excuse to avoid consequences.
This is not good logic. Of course anyone they can make the excuse. Just like they can claim they made a editing mistake. Just like a person committing murder can claim self-defense. It doesn't mean the defense is true or holds. Establishing whether some behaved unethically is just hard sometimes.
Comments
From skimming the PSU story, it looks like there might be a political factor in that one. I wonder if the same objections would have been raised had his research goal been to expose sexism in acceptance rates of science journals or somehing, rather than expose gender studies as nonsense.
I think it's the same argument as with satire. The goal is not to defraud but to make a legitimate point. There is no mens rea.
The whole affair seem to thoroughly politicized. The results are presented as if "grievance studies" should be particularly prone to publishing hoax papers, but there is no control used as far as I can tell, so who knows if other studies or disciplines or better or worse? Medicine certainly also seems to be vulnerable. Maybe the whole of academia and research has a problem with peer review and bad-quality journals?
Science is different from satire. It is great satire to get a passage from Mein Kampf accepted by a feminist journal - but is it valid scientific research?
I'd say his goal was clearly to make a political point, not a scientific discovery. But making political points is not unethical behavior.
As for the difference between science and satire, I think you missed my point. Which is that the argument is the same (i.e. mens rea, meaning intent to commit a crime), not the actual act.
Obviously "making a point" or "satire" is not a valid justification for scientific fraud. Otherwise anyone caught in plagiarism or whatever could just use that excuse to avoid consequences.
But if fraudulent or manipulated articles were used as part of legitimate research to study failures in the scientific system itself, it could be justified. But obviously it would have to be handled as serious research, itself peer reviewed and so on.
This is not good logic. Of course anyone they can make the excuse. Just like they can claim they made a editing mistake. Just like a person committing murder can claim self-defense. It doesn't mean the defense is true or holds. Establishing whether some behaved unethically is just hard sometimes.
You are indeed correct, since he was actually fired.