I think people like Andrew Wakefield make the effects of fraud more obvious. And, I agree, fraud on that level is probably rare, but what about smaller acts of fraud? For instance, I don’t think it’s that unlikely that many scientists, while under pressure and deadlines, fudge their results. And not because they want to deceive, no, they already “know” what the results should be, so they’re not doing anything that’s really all that wrong.
Interestingly though, we’ve found that science works despite significant bias, poor research, and so on. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a significant amount of fraud, and yet we still were able to do science.
Basically, I don’t think the question should be “is this really a big deal?” but “how much better would science be if this were fixed?”.
I think people like Andrew Wakefield make the effects of fraud more obvious. And, I agree, fraud on that level is probably rare, but what about smaller acts of fraud? For instance, I don’t think it’s that unlikely that many scientists, while under pressure and deadlines, fudge their results. And not because they want to deceive, no, they already “know” what the results should be, so they’re not doing anything that’s really all that wrong.
Interestingly though, we’ve found that science works despite significant bias, poor research, and so on. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a significant amount of fraud, and yet we still were able to do science.
Basically, I don’t think the question should be “is this really a big deal?” but “how much better would science be if this were fixed?”.
Opportunity cost is a big deal when it comes to top quality human minds, considering they are so rare.