When Scientists Behave Badly

Daniele Fanelli, a research fellow at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, has a commentary in the February 14 issue of Nature in which he discusses “an epidemic of false, biased and falsified findings” appearing in the world’s peer-reviewed journals. How to stop and reverse this trend?

Fanelli describes the many proposals that have been discussed in Nature and elsewhere — “improving mentorship and training, publishing negative results, reducing the pressure to publish, pre-registering studies, teaching ethics and ensuring harsh punishments.”

But all this, Fanelli says, isn’t enough.

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Does DOJ Take Corporate Espionage Seriously?

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a Page 1 story titled “U.S. Ups Ante for Spying on Firms,” describing how “top administration officials” are promising to get tough on hacking and the theft of confidential information from American businesses.

The new push comes on the heels of fresh allegations of Chinese cyberspying. … The Obama administration is casting trade-secret theft as a major threat to both economic and national security.

Why, then, hasn’t the Obama administration prosecuted a major case of corporate espionage involving wire fraud that took place more than a year ago, and in which it already has a confession from the culprit?

I speak, of course, of disgraced climate scientist Peter Gleick, who confessed to assuming a false identity to steal corporate documents from my organization, The Heartland Institute, with the express purpose of harming the organization.

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