'Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive.’
Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808)
Think of scientific misconduct in the UK and Malcolm Pearce – one of the most high-profile cases – comes immediately to mind. Malcolm Pearce was an assistant editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and a senior lecturer at St George's Medical School, when two fraudulent papers were published in the journal. A whistleblower at the hospital was the catalyst for an investigation that led to Pearce being fired, found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council, and struck off.1 The professor of the department, Geoffrey Chamberlain, who was also President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Editor of the journal, resigned from both positions as he was named as an author on one of the fraudulent papers. He reportedly did not know that his name was on the manuscript and, in his defence, it was not unusual at the time for Heads of Department to have ‘gift’ authorship on the department’s publications, despite not making any contribution. Regardless, both were disgraced.
Scientific misconduct has many faces and its true prevalence is unknown, although many agree that it is increasing. Is it because researchers are committing more publication crimes, or are we just better at discovering them? In the race to find a home for articles, are authors getting lazy, sloppy and making more mistakes? In the era of online publications reaching wider audiences, mistakes are easier to detect and report, and beware if Clare Francis stumbles across such misdemeanours…
Since 2010 an individual (or perhaps even a group) whose gender, identity and occupation are unknown, but who operate under the name ‘Clare Francis’, has upped the ante and flagged hundreds of suspected cases of potential fraud across the globe. Notorious among journal editors as a relentless whistleblower and crusader against text and image fraud, some of Francis’ tips have resulted in corrections and retractions. For example, a 2006 paper in the Journal of Cell Biology was retracted after Francis raised concerns years after publication about image manipulation, which were validated by the publisher.
But why does it happen? Why not? Researchers are human and subject to the same frailties as in other walks of life. If a measure of a good academic is solely the number of articles they have published, then – when quantity is rewarded over quality – scientific misconduct may reveal a glimpse of the pressure researchers are under.
It is worth remembering that, despite the stress of the ‘publish or perish’ culture, scientific misconduct is unacceptable in any guise and likely to be discovered, with embarrassing if not downright career- and reputation-destroying consequences. Good publishing etiquette is ultimately down to the integrity and moral sensibilities of researchers and authors.
In this excellent article about some of the ‘sins’ of publishing, Philippa Benson, who has kindly written for this series before, provides a thought-provoking insight into scientific misconduct.
Jyoti Shah
Commissioning Editor
References:
Lock S. Lessons from the Pearce affair: handling scientific fraud. BMJ 1995; 310: 1,547.
Retraction notice. J Cell Biol 2013; 200: 359. doi:10.1083/jcb.2005070832003r.