While certainly not defending those who willingly engage in scientific fraud, those who are punished, such as the anonymous scientists who accepted findings of misconduct presented in “Life After Fraud”1, deserve a chance to start over. If only internet memory would fade like human memory, we could forgive, forget, and move on.
Phil Davis
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY
pmd8@cornell.edu
The sole purpose of a research report should be to provide an accurate and truthful accounting of research. When other motives such as personal advancement, securing funding, commercial conflict of interest, or “publish or perish” enter, the public is being cheated. Researchers who commit these crimes know this, but place their personal motives above the best interest of the public. Therefore, knowledge of their misconduct should be as permanent as the false report that they intended to dupe the public with. There are plenty of useful jobs that don’t require these moral considerations.
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