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The Scientist: NewsBlog:
Neuroscientist claims stolen data
Posted by Andrea Gawrylewski [Entry posted at 2nd July 2008 09:51 PM GMT]
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Return to Top comment: Who owns the data? by anonymous poster [Comment posted 2008-07-09 07:58:50] It is easy for a postdoc, who is relieved of all responsibilities for obtaining funds and running the lab, to believe that they are the only one who knows anything. Those individuals had no right to remove the data from the laboratory. They should have resolved their interpretation of the data with their mentor, and the paper should not have been published without his permission. They had no right to exclude him from authorship. The rebuttal should be published in the best interests of science. Return to Top comment: This time the opposite happened by anonymous poster [Comment posted 2008-07-08 13:53:58] In my opinion, this dispute over the "stolen data" is rather a problem of an authorship.
Though the story is presented only from one side, I have an assumption what could be the reasons of parties on the other side. Typically, if a person (usually a post doc) leaves a lab under disgrace, the PI (ab)normally feels free to use their experimental data in his later publications and frequently without giving any credit (authorship) to these people. Although this kind of stealing is very frequent (I have both seen it and suffered it), it is usually considered to be accepted by the scientific community. This time the opposite happened. The persons leaving the lab (probably under disgrace), ensured their authorship in their own work by publishing their own results before the PI could do it. Practically the two post docs did not steal anything, since the data were produced by them. Authors should have made substantial intellectual contributions to a study and providing just funding (or oversight) ? what a PI usually does - is not enough for an authorship, as is stated by the guidelines formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (see: How to resolve authorship disputes; www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53485). The "misinterpretation" argument of the story seems just to be a handy, additional casus belli. Return to Top comment: Ridiculous Gossip Column by anonymous poster [Comment posted 2008-07-07 22:54:29] I find it ridiculous Nature has decided to post this one sided gossip piece. As a pillar in scientific advancement Nature should have known better that there are better avenue's that statements like these should be addressed. Return to Top comment: Comment on one item in the comment by Ellen Hunt by Ruth Rosin [Comment posted 2008-07-04 11:03:20] I want to comment here only on the following item in the comment by Ellen Hunt:
"However, I also think that any reputable journal needs to give space to properly stated criticism of any paper, whether it is a situation like this, or any other. In today's electronic world, publication of critiques should be a trivial matter. Additionally, such publications should be highly desired by the science community, because science is all about getting at the truth." Her idea is a very good idea, but even the editors of a reputable journal like Nature, do not provide sufficient space for a proper, online critique of articles published in their own journal. I've been trying for over a year to submit a proper critique of the report by Riley et al. (2005), on their honeybee radar-tracking study, where the authors express the hope that their results would be accepted as a vindication of v. Frisch's famous honeybee "dance language" (DL) hypothesis. Von Frisch's sensational DL hypothesis, first published in a scientific journal in 1946, as presumably already fully properly experimentally confirmed, was openly criticized for the first time by Adrian Wenner & his team, in 1967.This gave rise to the well-known DL controversy. The controversy, which has by now been going on for over 40 years, has throughout the years become very complex and convoluted. The study by Riley et al. (2005), cannot, however, provide any support for that DL hypothesis, because the hypothesis was stillborn, (more than 20 years before its inception), when v. Frisch fully justifiably concluded, on the basis of his first study on honeybee-recruitment, (published in an extensive summary in 1923), that honeybee-recruits use only odor, and no information about the location of any food. Moreover, the results he then obtained, already grossly contradicted the expectations from his 1946 DL hypothesis. Nature, however, allows critiques on material published in the journal, only in the form of "Brief Communication Arising", that are limited to not more than 700 words, plus 10 references, and must be understood even by non-professionals. It is utterly impossible to deal with any aspect of the very complex DL controversy, let alone with the recent study by Riley et al. (2005), within such narrow constraints! As a result, readers of Nature will continue to be misguided into believing that the study by Riley et al. (2005) can be accepted as a vindication of v. Frisch's stillborn hypothesis. Return to Top comment: Very well said Ellen Hunt! by David Bird [Comment posted 2008-07-04 00:45:12] While this particular story may not fit the description, your thoughts and comments are spot on I think!
The comparison to Russian Mafia couldn't be better said. Implementing such a policy could be tricky, but I agree, all data, findings, etc. generated from public funding should (eventually) be released to the public trust. Return to Top comment: Complicated by Ellen Hunt [Comment posted 2008-07-03 11:59:26] If it's a bad paper, that wouldn't be the first time one was published in a Nature publication. But I am not sure it is.
Over the years I have become less and less sympathetic to the idea that the P.I. who gets the grant and runs a lab should have control over what gets publshed and what does not. This idea is based on the premise that the P.I. is wiser, better able to interpret the data, etcetera. But if this ever was true, it certainly is not true today. In today's world I think that the most creative and interesting science is more often done by graduate students and post-docs. I know of quite a few situations where a lab has amassed huge troves of data and the people in the lab and/or the P.I. are barely scratching the surface. The taxpayers paid for all that, and yet there is this unwritten law that nobody else, inside or outside the lab is allowed to publish based on that data or allowed to have access to it. It "belongs" in effect, to the grantee. Frankly, it reminds me of nothing quite so much as the gangsters in the former USSR that I happened to meet in the 1990s who spoke of "their hard-won holdings" which was from money given by aid organizations. These men also had this idea in their head that the millions given in grants to buy things like generators or stoves or blankets meant that all those generators, stoves or blankets were theirs. It was after that experience that, back in the States, I found myself seeing that it was exactly the same sort of mind at work in science. I could not stop myself from drawing the parallel. Now I think this should be formally changed by law. I think that the law should say that after 12 months, or 18 months or some reasonable time period, P.I.s should be required to publish what data they have, and make it available to other scientists. Receiving a grant is a public trust. To me this is a matter of scientific ethics. I think it would be good, but I don't see how it can be required, that as much as possible, privately funded research have the same ethic. However, I also think that any reputable journal needs to give space to properly stated criticism of any paper, whether it is a situation like this, or any other. In today's electronic world, publication of critiques should be a trivial matter. Additionally, such publications should be highly desired by the science community, because science is all about getting at the truth. Comment on this blog |