Stem Cell Fraud

In the wake of the reports that a South Korean research scientist had faked his results has come a deluge of questions about scientific integrity and the value of peer review. The implication has been that peer review should have caught the fraud before publication. What good is science if it sometimes publishes things and then later takes it back?

As BizzyBlog wrote on 12/17,

Why the need for an “independent verification” if the paper was already “peer-reviewed”?

This attitude demonstrates a misunderstanding of peer review and of science itself.

Science is not a club or a church. Science does not issue edicts or statements of truth in the way many seem to imagine. Just because a researcher has published some work does not mean that it comes with a stamp of veracity that all scientists sign on to.

BizzyBlog (and others) have come to terms with this during the course of this scandal, but have now raised a second concern (which I find completely legitimate): the effect of using taxpayer money to support researchers in uncertain scientific fields, such as stem cell research. If public money is spent without full understanding and disclosure, our public trust has been violated.

BizzyBlog's suggestion:

So the next time you hear the term “peer-reviewed,” I would substitute these words: “passed the smell test (maybe, and if the person submitting the work is ethical and conducted his/her work conscientiously and honorably).”
Given the ever-larger dollars, very often tax dollars, that are based on the reliability of scientific work, standards must be raised, even if it costs money up-front (auditors, if you will) to raise them, and even if scientists’ egos are bruised in the process.

Given that federal funds are being used I see the author's point, although in the interest of full disclosure I must say that I am too libertarian to support federal funds for stem cells or most other scientific research anyway. But even with federal expenditures in the field, these audits are not necessary if we all understand how science works, and what "peer review" actually means. BizzyBlog now outlines a December 30 WSJ article by Thomas Stossel, American Cancer Society Professor at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the division of hematology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who sums it up nicely:

If reporters understood that journals are magazines, not Holy Scripture, we might not be witnessing ever more onerous regulations inhibiting interactions between academic and industry science.

Dr. Walter Witschey, director of the Science Museum of Virginia, has written an article (here) that hopes to explain the process of peer review for those who do not understand it. In layman's terms. I highly recomment it if you have never submitted a paper for publication in a scientific journal.