WIKIMEDIA, JULOA Dutch psychologist who admitted engaging in wide scientific fraud has had 2 more of his papers retracted from the literature, bringing the total of yanked studies to 53, according to the blog Retraction Watch. The latest retractions come from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, citing another instance of fraud perpetrated by Diederik Stapel, formerly dean of Tilburg University’s School of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Stapel, once a media darling in the Netherlands and beyond for his research on several aspects of human behavior, fell from grace in the past few years when his graduate students alerted university officials that he’d been falsifying data in virtually all of his studies. Stapel was relieved of his position as dean and was disgraced in academic circles. The New York Times published an extensive profile of Stapel last month (April 26). It details the researcher’s sweeping misconduct—he would fabricate whole studies sitting at his kitchen table—and is worth a jaw-dropping read, if you enjoy learning about the seedier side of science.
