It wasn’t that long ago the science community were giving ammunition to the anti-science crazies by publishing completely computer-generated papers in legitimate and respected peer-reviewed journals. I don’t know if it’s the political clout you can pull with studies supporting your case or if it’s the billions of dollars you can make with the falsified data from studies claiming your drug or food additive is safe, but science has always been kinda dirty.
I guess one way to demonstrate the ways in which science tries to clean itself up and stay honest is for journals to start publishing the studies which are critical or fail to replicate groundbreaking findings. But let’s be honest here, that will not be the norm for a long time because publishing is big business. The next best thing is for the scientists themselves to put their hands up and say “If I f**ked up, then pull my research”. If a study cannot be replicated with the exact same findings under the exact same conditions by a different researcher then it is a bad study, or possibly a very poorly written study. Either way, it has no business being in print circulation.
Teruhiko Wakayama, one of the two lead researchers who recently published a study which claimed to have found a quick and easy way to create stem cells from adult human cells has recently admitted that if his findings cannot be replicated by independent researchers then maybe it should be withdrawn so he and his team can find out if the findings are incorrect or if the paper was poorly put together. Mad respect Teruhiko.
