The grand majority of scientists strive for sound science and
many work to call out bad science. Unfortunately, there will
always be examples of research misconduct, such as the confusing
story of the Golden Rice trial in China. In some cases, science
that clearly has methodical statistical, and other errors gets
published and and even used to decide national policies. While
responsible research conduct seems like common sense, these
examples show that at least some of us need help. The
InterAcademy Council, an organization of all the world’s science
academies, just released a timely report: Responsible Conduct in
the Global Research Enterprise. Scientific fraud is a major
reason why they decided to focus on this subject. An editorial
by the report’s co-chairs goes so far as to specifically call
out the Seralini study as exemplar of the problems of blurring
lines between science and advocacy (although the report was
started before the offending paper was published). The face of
science is changing… More count