The examples I cited way back at the beginning of this thread had nothing to do with being WRONG, they were related to academic papers submitted to scientific publications (print or online) that were knowingly FRAUDULENT.
When hundreds of scientists are researching a topic attempting to explain a biological phenomena or devise some new material to increase the efficiency of batteries, etc., those scientists are ALWAYS going to get things WRONG. Their formulation of the phenomena they are trying to reproduce or create might be wrong, causing the structure of their experiment or study to be wrong and thus the results incorrect. Their understanding of the phenomena they are attempting to recreate or synthesize might be wrong so the instrumentation of their experiment might eventually prove to be flawed, causing their conclusions to be WRONG.
Devoting yourself to a scientific career essentially means devoting yourself to a career of being mostly wrong, interspersed with precious few occasions in which you are right and “stay right” for years / decades. Real scientists know that and accept it as part of the profession.
These people were perpetrating FRAUDS. They were using statistics to MANUFACTURE data they claimed they COLLECTED from experiments that “proved” amazing leaps forward in their area of research. In some cases, they were picking random microscopic scale photos of cells having NOTHING TO DO with their research and using those photos as “illustrations” of the processes and results they were studying. It’s just a bunch of random cells, what the hell do the rest of us non-science rubes looking at a story onine know? We’ll never know what the scientist saw looking into that electron microscope. Looks “sciencey” to me. I guess the results must be true.
That’s the reaction these fraudsters are counting on to provide their ego, their resume or their funding a temporary boost. Unfortunately for the people perpetrating these frauds, they did not anticipate how search technologies would simpify finding the fraud techniques they were using. Apparently, some still haven’t caught on because new frauds are being detected every week in new publications.
Big difference.
WTH