Timeline for I have egregiously sloppy (possibly falsified) data that I need to correct. How should I go about this?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 24, 2021 at 0:04 | comment | added | Captain Emacs | @Buffy It's the OP's own words. I must confess I find it hard to put myself in the shoes of someone who does not even remember how their data came about. I remember the circumstances about the development of practically every paper I did as a first/main author. That's why I suspected that the situation might be the result of lack of sleep (or otherwise under extreme time pressure). | |
| Feb 23, 2021 at 19:12 | comment | added | Buffy | @CaptainEmacs, I took "falsification" as hyperbole based on fear rather than fact. But, yes, intentional falsification is of a different order than sloppiness. | |
| Feb 23, 2021 at 18:13 | comment | added | Captain Emacs | A mistake is unfortunate, fabrication is evil. Intentions matter. If it was a mistake, it's still not nice (it is a nuisance to have sloppy collaborators, but if they learn to become more careful, one may accept that they improved). Bad intentions will however leave an ever-lingering suspiciion. | |
| Feb 23, 2021 at 8:08 | comment | added | Snijderfrey | "And most will forgive at least some of it due to your lack of experience at the time." I think so, too, but publishing data generated by an undergraduate student without double checking is also a mistake, maybe also caused by lack of experience. Both student and advisor will have learned something from this. (Not saying anything about the intentional vs. accidental discussion which can only be decided by looking at the actual data.) | |
| Feb 23, 2021 at 5:32 | comment | added | 8263xiao | How would such an act of fabrication be proven vs. genuine error? Also, I already sent him the corrected data analysis - how would a PI react to their former student saying they made a lot of mistakes in data analysis and provided corrections? The raw data is unaltered and available. | |
| Feb 23, 2021 at 5:22 | comment | added | Captain Emacs | @Buffy If the internship was relevant to a grade or a reference, the discovery of fabrication of data may unravel the conditions for OP being in grad school. It is very much to be hoped that the data were just misgenerated in a fit of sleep deprivation rather than in an act of intentional fabrication. I know that I would wash my hands off a student that I suspect of previously fabricating data. This is the one capital scientific misconduct that a reputation can not recover from, in my opinion. | |
| Feb 23, 2021 at 2:27 | comment | added | 8263xiao | I did. Hopefully that will satisfy him. My previous work was admittedly atrocious (I was definitely a very sloppy undergrad), and my fear of suspicion is because the corrected data looks messier and has much larger error bars. | |
| Feb 23, 2021 at 0:43 | history | answered | Buffy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |