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A scientist that causes, through willful fraud, the death of people seems to be guilty of something like manslaughter. Using fake data is a pretty clear-cut exa
by VSerge 2y ago
A scientist that causes, through willful fraud, the death of people seems to be guilty of something like manslaughter. Using fake data is a pretty clear-cut example of willful fraud, and a reasearcher fudging data over such a life and death question should 100% be held accountable.
Scientists making errors in good faith should on the other hand be insulated from any kind of liability.
- auggierose 2y agoYou cannot insulate scientists making errors in good faith from any kind of liability, if you make the wilful frauds liable. Because there is no 100% way of distinguishing the two.
- zug_zug 2y agoThere are cases where people have doctored images in their research data, or completely fabricated data to meet a significance threshhold. There may be ambigious cases but there are non-ambiguous cases too.
- tines 2y agoNot that I'm in favor of the proposed measure, but saying because we can't identify wilful frauds 100% of the time then we can't protect the non-fraudsters, is just a bit silly, no? You have this kind of problem detecting any kind of fraud. One test is, is there written communication between people about committing the fraud? If so, there you go.
- auggierose 2y agoOf course, such communication cannot ever be faked by interested third parties.
- tines 2y agoThat isn't a new problem though. Should we not enforce laws against fraud because people might be framed? You determine that through investigation.
- auggierose 2y agoI'd argue scientists have better things to do than spending their time shielding themselves from liability lawsuits.
- tines 2y agoAgain, not a new problem.
- auggierose 2y agoThat is wrong, it would be a new problem, because currently it does not exist.
- tines 2y agoI don't believe you're engaging in good faith here, so I'm not going to reply any more, but if you're interested in having a productive conversation, try to think about what I might be meaning a little more and then reply instead of taking the least sensical interpretation and responding to that. Or, if you like, you might reply to multiple interpretations of what I said if you're not sure which one I mean, and that way we can advance the dialogue. Have a good one.
- auggierose 2y ago
- bluGill 2y agoYou don't need to be 100%. We assume innocent until proven guilty in other contexts. At least some criminals are known to go free because we cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they really did it. However we get a lot of them. It isn't perfect, but it is a standard.
- auggierose 2y agoDespite innocent until proven guilty, there are innocent people in prison or on death row. I doubt that is a standard that any scientist would agree to.
- bluGill 2y agoLike I said, not perfect. It is overall the best I have heard of. I'm open to something better if possible.
- auggierose 2y agoNo liability.
- amatecha 2y agoWait, you're saying, based on your prior comment[0], that scientists who commit willful fraud shouldn't be held liable? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41329891 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41329891
- auggierose 2y agoScientists who publish research in a journal, and then it turns out that this research is wrong, for whatever reason, should not be held liable for the consequences of this. That is what I am saying.
- oneshtein 2y agoIn science, 3 independent scientific organisations must reproduce the effect. Otherwise, it's not a science at all. It's just authority.