no fudging

the minnversity does good training in research ethics, though the frickin' huge issues sometimes get lost in the mind-numbing minutiae of mandatory responsible conduct of research seminars. well, something ain't working, because one of our big-time stem cell research studies was apparently based on falsified data.

the former grad research assistant is being thrown under the bus on this one, so now she's left parsing the difference between "inappropriate" and "fraudulent" manipulation of data. yeesh. as my students well know, it is far better to have a study or dissertation with null findings than to have a study or dissertation with "inappropriate" or "fraudulent" findings. if, like me, you ever find yourself being deposed by a battalion of crazy-smart lawyers, you'll be especially glad that you erred on the side of caution.

but c'mon, do we really need a grad seminar to teach researchers not to fudge their data? to this day, i am secure in the knowledge that larry cannon, my high school physics teacher, would personally come down to the minnversity and kick my sorry butt if there were ever allegations that i'd falsified data. though we must be learning something from all those ethics tutorials in grad school, we should have learned our core research values in high school.