I am not an academic, or at least not now. I did a stint for about 1 \u00bd years in the early 80\u2019s, found it wasn\u2019t for me, and went on to have a comfortable career as a clinical doc in a small town in Maine. I continued to teach in our local family medicine residency until I retired from clinical practice. I now help adjudicate Social Security Disability claims as a part-time gig as I coast toward full retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have been reading Retraction Watch for a couple of years now. Wonderful newsletter. My interest was piqued by AI-generated garbage and giant rat penises, and I was introduced to the dirty, smelly world of academic misbehavior. Now part of my morning reading ritual, Retraction Watch connects me with the newest tranche of sloppy, indifferent work. Poor supervision of trainees. Predatory journals. Predatory faculty. Indifferent publishers who are more concerned with income than accuracy. AI-generated crap. It is appalling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, what is even more upsetting is academia\u2019s response. Complaint adjudications by institutions take years, sometimes decades. \u201cHonest\u201d mistakes. \u201cThere\u2019s a process that has to be followed.\u201d Just a minor error, no harm, no foul. Sorry, next time I\u2019ll actually supervise my grad students. All of this is conveyed in a dry, peculiar dialect of academic legalese, and bad behavior continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do not generate academic content. I consume it. When I was treating patients, I relied on honest, accurate experiments and clinical observations to guide and adapt my practice as new treatment options became available. As a patient, I depend on honest science\u2014that the cancer drug really works, that the knee replacement won\u2019t fall out in a year. As a person, I need to know that the new structural steel in the skyscraper I\u2019m about to visit is as strong as the metallurgy journal report indicates. That the economic models I depend on for managing my retirement account are grounded in reality. As a citizen, I rely on honest research in so many areas: social sciences, to help decide how to vote. Hard sciences, to know that my tax dollars are not wasted in flawed basic research. Public health and environmental issues, so I can advocate knowledgeably for issues that affect me. I\u2019ll stop, I think you get the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within academics, academic fraud is not a victimless crime. Regrettably, life in the world of colleges, labs, and universities is a zero-sum game. There are only so many slots at prestigious universities, so many dollars or pounds or euros or yuan for grants. There is only one department chair, one endowed professorship in the department. For individuals in academics in the developing world, there are only so many visa slots in the U.S. or Germany or Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Academic fraudsters are counterfeiters. Higher education uses a currency of PEAs, Prestige-Enhancing Activities\u2014articles, chapters, symposia participation, editorships. Generating PEAs from garbage research is stealing from honest academics, buying advancement, grant money, or visas with false currency, and pushing others out of the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My fundamental question is this: where is the rage? Timid, partially effective or ineffective responses are tolerance, pure and simple. Why does the academic world tolerate this behavior? I hope that the primary reason is that academic fraud is perceived as a victimless crime. It is not. Are academics too timid\u2014does life in the ivory tower attract individuals who won\u2019t push when push comes to shove? Worst of all, is it possible that academic fraud is not a binary finding, but one of degree\u2014that no one really wants to get into a fight about academic rigor and honesty when the response to an accusation is an examination of the accuser\u2019s behavior, the exam won\u2019t be squeaky clean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would ask my academic friends and colleagues to consider a new paradigm, one that is more aggressive and protective of the vast majority of honest people in higher education and research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we accept that this paradigm is even partially correct, paper retractions are not enough. Publishers have only a limited vested interest in maintaining data integrity. Certainly, retractions are needed to maintain the integrity of the stream of information coming from research institutions. But cleaning up a sewage spill means dredging the river and<\/em><\/strong> stopping the leak. The first line of defense should, continuing the analogy, be that the sewage is never spilled in the first place. You get caught cheating, again and again, and again, you don\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How this is implemented must fall to academia. Due process must be followed, honest errors addressed supportively and professionally, and the punishment must fit the crime. Weaponization of the process to settle interpersonal scores should be dealt with harshly. However, I will say this: if we accept my paradigm, castigating an unscrupulous offender at the faculty senate will be about as effective at stopping academic fraud as hanging up on a phone scammer is at stopping phishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two more ideas, and then I will stop this diatribe. First, I beg my academic friends and colleagues to consider collective action. Policies should, to the greatest extent possible, be consistent among institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last, in the U.S., problematic behavior of health care professionals is reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank. The database can (and must) be queried as part of the new-hire process and for the periodic recredentialing required of licensed health care professionals. Is there any role for such a data bank among universities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I end this piece with the question I asked in the title. Where is the rage? For God\u2019s sake, do something effective!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am not an academic, or at least not now. I did a stint for about 1 \u00bd years in the early 80\u2019s, found it wasn\u2019t for me, and went on to have a comfortable career as a clinical doc in a small town in Maine. I continued to teach in our local family medicine … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/electricmammal.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}