The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science

Judson has done an excellent job in exposing intellectual fraud in general ,as well as concentrating specifically on the attempt by David Baltimore to cover up the extremely shoddy,error filled work of a colleage,Imanishi-Kari.Baltimore had agreed to put his name on a paper that he had not read carefully,if at all. Margot O'Toole exposed the paper,showing that it was riddled with errors.Baltimore engaged in an attempted coverup ,believing that his great reputation,based on his being a Nobel Prize winner with a number of accomplishments ,would serve to sidetrack any call for the retraction of the paper.An excellent summary of this scientific fiasco is given on p.242 by Judson when he cites the final judgment of another Nobelist,the late Howard Temin:" David's misconduct was-When an experiment is challenged no matter who it is challenged by it's your responsibility to check...When you publish something you are responsible for it.And one of the great strengths of American science...is that even the most senior professor,if challenged by the lowliest technician or graduate student,is required to treat them seriously...It is one of the most fundamental aspects of science in America". In fact,what Temin is stating is not just the most fundamental aspect of American science.Transparency,the requirement that results be checked and rechecked before the publication of an article in a scientific journal,is the most fundamental aspect of science.Error correction is a necessary condition for any field to be called "scientific ".Fields or disciplines that do not prevent or correct error filled articles from being published or that do not retract such articles once they are exposed ,like most social sciences,economics and psychology in particular,are not considered hard science.

Science as a discipline is not immune to fraud, as Horace Freeland Judson demonstrates in his study The Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science. Judson is the former director of the center for History of Recent Science: his background lends to his survey of dozens of cases where scientific fraud and aberrant scientists have threatened the very reliability and foundations of the scientific process. Chapters chart cases of scientific self-government and cases which came to light, examining events, causes, and resolution processes.