This story by @dangaristo reports shocking details of scientific misconduct by Ranga Dias, who made headlines last year for his now-retracted reports of room-temperature #superconductivity. It’s an extreme case, but it exposes weaknesses in #science that badly need more attention.
@jCarttarBrooke@dangaristo@academicchatter
That Dias’ misconduct was exposed doesn’t mean that scientific institutions are healthy. The article is full of examples of problems that everyone talks about: high-status scientists defending the indefensible to protect their own reputation; the failure of universities to protect students from abusive advisors; the incentives for fraud created by “high-impact” journals; etc.
@EVDHmn@jCarttarBrooke@dangaristo@academicchatter
Tell that to the students whose careers have been ruined by putting their trust in a charlatan, his employer, and everyone else who failed to exercise due diligence.
Interesting to see who got involved in this. One of the physicists who published an analysis showing that the Dias data were most likely fabricated [1] is Jorge E Hirsch [2]. Hirsch helped to prevent nuclear weapons being launched in 2006 [2]. He's also the person who proposed the h-index [2].