Faked Beta-Amyloid Data. What Does It Mean?
To quote someone I know in Alzheimer research - “I’m pretty sure it’s all fake”It’s funny because more than once I’ve had conversations off-the-record with people who had the same concerns.What I think is most troubling is how long it took and how many papers support the claims.In other words, there are thousands of papers supporting beta-amyloid and/or building off the data / theory. All of that data and everyone conducting that data should be in question. Yes, sometimes you’ll see correlations even though the mechanism is not what you’d expect. That said, for 16 years? LolNo, in reality, this should indicate there is systemic fraud in the industry. I don’t think everyone’s a fraud, it’s as much about what doesn’t get published as what does get published. How does this happen? I commented on incentives prior here:  https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=32213123I personally don’t see how we can advance science with the current credentialing and paper citation == academic success we’ve seen grow the last 50 years. In many ways, fundamental research has stalled, with applications of research advancing (giving us the illusion of advancing the fundamentals).To fix this problem, an overhaul is needed. Most importantly, the gate keeping mechanisms should be removed.