These two cases are part of a remarkable flood of scientific retractions. Between 2001 and 2010, the number of retractions increased more than 15-fold, according to a recent investigation by the Wall Street Journal. There were 22 retractions in 2001, and 339 last year, according to the Journal, over a period of time when the number of publications increased by only 44 percent.
It would seem a grim development, this sudden scourge of epic sloppiness and outright fraud in the halls of science. But it’s actually news we should all welcome: We are not witnessing an explosion of misconduct, but a new openness about it.
There are some forces, including easy access to image manipulation software like Photoshop, that are making it easier to fake results. But the problem has festered for decades, and now, finally, science is beginning to get serious about dealing with it.
The most spectacular recent case of scientific fraud came out of South Korea. In early 2004, researchers there announced that they had cloned a human cell, earning front-page headlines around the world, and tantalizing the public with the prospect of future disease treatments. Invitations to collaborate poured in from top biologists. The South Korean government ensured that the lead scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, had every resource at his disposal. He was a national hero.
But it was all a work of fiction. Hwang had wasted people’s time and money, bringing disrepute to biology, and to science as an enterprise.
Scientific fraud can also have more direct human costs. One of the heavyweight champions in this category is Andrew Wakefield, the British researcher who published a 1998 paper suggesting autism was caused by vaccines. The paper was an utter fraud, with invented patients. But the scare pushed down vaccination rates, causing outbreaks of measles. And his theory has persisted among many parents of autistic children, reducing support for urgently needed (genuine) research.
