Past and Current Status of Scientific, Academic, and Research Fraud

Abstract

In the quest to advance knowledge, researchers publish approximately 2 million scientific articles each year, in close to 30,000 peer-reviewed journals. Even though there was hardly a time when science was more questioned, distorted, and defamed, this is still the closest thing to the established body of knowledge for universities, academic laboratories, and other government and private organizations and agencies worldwide. Are plagiarism, fraud, and misconduct indeed infiltrating and rotting the revered shrines of wisdom? Or is alleged scientific decay a consequence of relatively few overambitious, incompetent, or truly rogue researchers, who sooner or later are identified and banned from the community? In the distant past, fraud was often in the eye of the beholder. As experimental design was rarely adequate, measuring instruments were primitive or nonexistent, and modern statistics were lacking, conflicts were often decided by the strongest side, namely, the one backed by the authorities, not necessarily the correct one. Fortunately, much institutional advance has occurred, and current fraudsters exceptionally get away with it. This chapter briefly reviews the state of the art in academic research.