> Most research is flawed or useless, but published anyway because it's expedient for the authors to do so.
For the record I now know a professor at one of the premier institutions in the world, who is a total fraud. Their research was fraudulent in grad school. Their lab mates tried to raise concerns and nothing happened. That person graduated, with everyone on the committee knowing the issues. Then they got a premier post-doc position. People in their lab (who I caught up with at a conference) mentioned their work was terrible. Now they’re a professor at a top tier university.
Along the way, everyone knew and when people tried to bring up concerns higher ups in the institution suppressed the knowledge. Mostly because their fraudulent work was already cited tens of times.
This wasn’t directly in my field, but I saw it go down and followed it.
In my day job, I just throw out papers that don’t publish datasets and code. Most cs work is equally useless. It’s all a farce.
EDIT: I recommend the book for some insights - “Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions by Richard Harris”
There’s also a decent podcast by Bret and Eric Weinstein that dives into a similar story https://youtu.be/dJNjH4SP6vw?list=PLq9jO8fmlPee9ezOraOHAJ3g9...
There are many examples, at the end of the day... the people in the institutions will protect themselves.
For the record I now know a professor at one of the premier institutions in the world, who is a total fraud. Their research was fraudulent in grad school. Their lab mates tried to raise concerns and nothing happened. That person graduated, with everyone on the committee knowing the issues. Then they got a premier post-doc position. People in their lab (who I caught up with at a conference) mentioned their work was terrible. Now they’re a professor at a top tier university.
Along the way, everyone knew and when people tried to bring up concerns higher ups in the institution suppressed the knowledge. Mostly because their fraudulent work was already cited tens of times.
This wasn’t directly in my field, but I saw it go down and followed it.
In my day job, I just throw out papers that don’t publish datasets and code. Most cs work is equally useless. It’s all a farce.
EDIT: I recommend the book for some insights - “Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions by Richard Harris”
There’s also a decent podcast by Bret and Eric Weinstein that dives into a similar story https://youtu.be/dJNjH4SP6vw?list=PLq9jO8fmlPee9ezOraOHAJ3g9...
There are many examples, at the end of the day... the people in the institutions will protect themselves.