We finished up 2011 with the biggest science stories, but what about the duds? Fortunately, the magazine The Scientist came up with a list of the top science scandals of 2011. Sadly, not every scientist is showing the greatest judgement or demonstrating a high level of integrity. Five examples cited by the article related to (1) Diederik Stapel and his multiple problematic papers, (2) mice and chronic fatigue syndrome, (3) genes associated with extreme longevity, (4) arsenic-based life, and (5) change skeptic Edward Wegman. One of my earlier pieces discussed the arsenic-based life story when it first broke. In fact, it was a NASA announcement, which only makes the error more serious. As I even noted then, there was great skepticism about this finding from the outset. However, the paper has not been retracted. Hence, the controversy continues.
Such scandals are quite destructive at a time when much of the public is looking for reasons to ignore difficult choices and retreat to a more comfortable position where everything that needs to be known has been settled. Risk-taking is a natural part of science, as is trial and error. We just need to recognize those errors, learn from them, and move on. Publishing these errors as new knowledge does great harm.
