Bad Research

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I find it depressing that there are cases of fraud. Mistakes I can understand, and hope they would be discovered and corrected. But the cases of fraud make all research papers suspect, to me.

That seems completely unreasonable to me. Every industry and every profession has its share of shady operators. Every product and every line has its quality control issues. No quality control is 100% effective.

What is heartening is how much of that fraud actually gets picked up and the work retracted. The more important and relevant a paper, the more scrutiny it will inevitably attract; the more likely a fraudulent paper in that area will be discovered.