Scientific integrity

We hold that in the highest regard in JPRAS, ensuring that the center of what we're doing, that ultimately there'll be some patient benefit.

So whilst a lot has changed over the last 10 years, ultimately that core of research integrity, trust, and seeking patient benefit remains the same.

Yeah, interesting, because you touched on some really good points there.

One about the pressure to publish, we'll touch on that.

And I think that is one of the new challenges that we have in publishing.

However, we are seeking to fight back against abusive AI because it's really, really important.

I've mentioned research integrity underpins everything that we do at JPRAS.

And so we're starting to understand the warning signs, which can involve strange authorship combinations and groups.

This is sort of an off-the-wall question, but it relates to a story that I'm covering that's kind of going on right now.

Like within BenchLink or just in general, these large language models, do they have some sort of scientific integrity guardrails? I'm just imagining you have a bunch of data And it doesn't show what you want.

And you're a bad scientist.

So you tell that, hey, this Western blot, I want it to show something.

Or like this gel image, I want it to show something.

Like, will it do that? And the context is, there's a story going on right now where these scientific integrity image sleuths have found out that a lot of the antibody validation data being used to promote antibodies on Thermo Fisher's website, the Abcam, everybody.

They're just full of manipulated images.

So I guess my question is, is this just going to make the manipulated image problem worse if the user is willing to go down that dark path?

Dana-Farber claimed they were already aware of many of these allegations before Dr David's public blog post.

Dr Barrett-Rollins, the Institute's Research Integrity Officer, stated that an internal review had been underway for over a year.

Critics found this coincidental, noting that swift action to actually retract papers only occurred after David forced their hand publicly.

Furthermore, the Institute aggressively defended the intent of its researchers.

And it was even closer to home than that.

Online watchdogs quickly discovered that Rollins was married to Dr. Jane Friedman, an elite Harvard physician-scientist who was herself a co-author on several of the flagged publications.

The research integrity officer was effectively being asked to investigate his own bosses, close friends and his own household.

Russell Berger, writing for the Broken Science Initiative, pointed out that this blatantly violated federal research misconduct policy, which requires individuals conducting investigations to have no unresolved conflicts of interests to ensure fairness.

I wanna show you that it's important and help you understand the economics that's all around you.

Let's begin on August nineteen, when the Commerce Department posted a new directive called Scientific Integrity.

It's DAO two-one-six-two-three, whatever that means.

The Commerce Department did this quietly, very quietly.

The previous version of this directive was wiped from the Commerce website.

I had to go back to the WayBack Machine to find it.

There's something pretty bleak about a country's scientific integrity rules surviving only because a volunteer internet archive took a screenshot.

As far as I can tell, the only mainstream reporter who caught this was NPR's Hansi Lo Wang, who found the change and explained why former Census officials were alarmed.

of these relationships generally uh not necessarily california specific but the general issue is made this a 30 30 year controversy and the uh report that just came out doesn't mention the word controversy at all so they try to make it look like there's um you know they're they're contributing something valuable now without looking at the research record

well this is You've been a vocal advocate for scientific integrity, including through your Scientific Integrity Institute.

What lessons from your experiences with PM 2.5 research, such as reanalysis and responses to criticism, should the scientific community and policymakers take to heart today?

Well, this is one of my goals that the scientific method must be followed in all scientific investigations.