Scientific misconduct - Essay Example

Scientific Misconduct Scientific misconduct refers to fabrication, falsification or plagiarism of scientific data. This is in proposing, performing, or receiving research proposal already submitted or reporting research results that have been funded (Broad & Wade, 1982). It includes proposals in all fields of science, engineering, mathematics and education with the exception of genuine errors or differences of opinion. This paper will endeavor to examine all of these in detail.Fabrication referred to as making up and repowering results or just recording them.

Falsification, on the other hand, refers to manipulating research equipment, materials, or processes or omitting (changing) results or data such that the study is not correctly represented in the records. Plagiarism is the stealing of another individual’s processes, ideas, words or results without giving proper credit. Scientific misconduct has dire consequences (Broad & Wade, 1982). It can ruin careers of researchers who knowingly write publications based on false research. If this is done by clinical researchers, some patients may suffer due to the wrong information on different types of treatment.

A proper example is an article on fraud by Lancet published in Wakefield et al. (1999) (Koocher & Keith 2010). It linked a vaccine against measles, mumps, and rubella to autism. This caused a massive drop in vaccinations that could have resulted in several deaths, in children who were not protected.Falsification also does delay scientific progress especially when researchers misuse research funds, as well as waste time, following false research. A case in point is false claims by physicist Jan Hendrik Schon that he had built high performance plastic transistors, plus the world’s organic laser.

This resulted in several laboratories wasting resources and years trying to duplicate his findings (Koocher & Keith 2010). Scientific misconduct ruins the image of the field in which the falsified research is carried out. It diminishes faith in science. Unfortunately, concrete information on the escalating cases of fabrication or falsifying of research in science is not available. The only estimate of the rise in research misconduct is a survey by Koocher & Keith (2010). According to the findings, approximately 1.

5% of all research done annually is false. Out of the 155,000 researchers supplied by the National Institution of Health (NIH) funding, there were 2,335 incidents of possible misconduct yearly, sixty percent of them involving falsification or fabrication of data.It is worth noting that scientific researchers who engage in this misconduct are driven by the ambition to excel and succeed. This is because the rewards for publications are enticing and those who do it assume that they are unlikely to be discovered and that the punishment may not be stern.

The assumption is that researchers who produce more work rise to the top quickly and they receive awards from respectable professional societies and these rewards boost their careers tremendously. The consequences of scientific misconduct if discovered are varied. Researchers may lose their jobs and are, at times, expelled from their scientific field. Wakefield had his medical license revoked permanently, and Schon also had his PhD taken away by the University of Konstanz (Koocher & Keith 2010).

This makes it clear that scientific misconduct is happening, and it is imperative that it is detected and dealt with severely.Works CitedBroad, W., & Wade, N. (1982). Betrayers of the truth. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Koocher, P., & Keith, P. (2010). Peers nip misconduct in the bud. Nature, 466(45), 438–440.