It is those who commit research misconduct – not those who expose them – that damage science, according to David Sanders. But while the biologist has embraced the role of data detective thrust upon him, he wishes more scientists would share the thankless, legally fraught burden

It was possible when I was a graduate student in the mid 1980s to have read every article in my field of study, bacterial chemotaxis. I did so, and I was known among my colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley for having achieved a feat that would be impossible now.

At a Gordon conference I attended on sensory transduction in microorganisms, some graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and one or two professors were discussing how the signal created when a bacterium responds to the concentration of a chemical in its environment is conveyed. Despite being rather a junior scientist, I was not shy and, in response to a statement made by one of the others, I interjected: “But what about this paper (I named the authors)?” The answer I received was striking: “Everyone knows that paper is wrong.”

I was stunned. Having confirmed with more senior researchers that this was indeed the universal view, and having learned the reasons, I enquired whether the publication had been retracted or corrected, or whether any subsequent article had stated that the data were incorrect. The answer was no.

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