Should I go ahead with presenting incomplete results and partially unverified conclusions in conference?

Question

I have a conference talk (did not submit proceedings) in two days and last night I was making the presentation and I came across a major error in my conclusions of the work. I am currently writing the paper, so I thought the work was completed. But the error is a major drawback to my results.

To go into the details, my talk consists of two parts:

1. Using computational modeling to determine the mechanism of an experimental process.
2. Developing an empirical equation from the simulation results to predict the experimental results.

There are no issues with the first part. But yesterday I found that the second part is partially wrong and I need to rework my analysis and run more simulations. However, I don't have time to do so. This was supposed to be completing my results and be a major highlight to my work. Predicting the experimental results is a necessary part of work of this nature.

Should I go ahead and present the results with the error? Won't that be unethical? Or should I withdraw from the conference altogether? My advisor is not responding to my mails.

Answer 1

You should not present results that you know are false:

• It could lead to others wasting lots of time and money trying to replicate or build on your results. This makes it unethical to knowingly present results with errors (without disclosing the errors).
• You could make a fool of yourself (and your co-workers): there is a good chance that someone will notice, or ask a question that you cannot answer because you presented erroneous results.
• Lying is (almost) never a good idea.

There are three things you can do:

1. Present only the first part of the results, and explain that you are still planning to validate the results. This is probably the best option, especially because you stated in the comments that the first part by itself is interesting and new. Work does not have to be finished or perfect to be interesting.

2. Present the results with the error, but clearly explain where the error is and why the mistake was made: others may learn from this, and the talk could be very interesting if this is done well and if the error itself is interesting enough. Whether this works depends a lot on your specific case and your presentation skills.

3. Withdraw your talk. This is the best option if there is reason to believe that others may replicate or complete your work before you can do so yourself. While unlikely, it has happened before, and is worth considering when presenting unfinished work.

Finally: The best advice can be given by your advisor, who is (or can be made) aware of the details of your work, type of conference, etc. You contacted them by email but they have not responded. Maybe try a phone call?