We must reform a science culture that sometimes seems to value impact and quantity over importance and quality, say Ferric Fang and Arturo Casadevall
The archetypal Greek tragedy involves a hero who is virtuous and respected but is ultimately destroyed by a fatal flaw or error in judgement that has terrible consequences. For audiences, the tragic downfall of a mythic hero provided an opportunity for self-reflection and served to reinforce standards of morality.
Over the last few years, we have been lamenting how science has been transfigured into something ugly and base, where the pursuit of rapid quantity over quality and at the expense of research culture. This case from the US should be a stark warning for the leaders of successful/productive research groups globally. Your leadership needs to extol and mentor excellent, responsible and ethical practice, not just secure grant dollars and churn out as many publications as possible.
Tessier-Lavigne’s downfall began when Theo Baker, a student journalist at Stanford, received a tip that he was an author of research papers that had been flagged on the website PubPeer for possible image duplication. While investigating the story, Baker was informed by other anonymous sources of even more serious allegations that Tessier-Lavigne had covered up research misconduct arising from his lab when he worked at the San Francisco biotech firm Genentech, where he worked from 2003 to 2011.
An external panel was formed to review the evidence. Although it failed to confirm the allegations involving Genentech, it was able to verify evidence of data manipulation in papers from Tessier-Lavigne’s research groups, published in the journals Cell, Science and Nature in 1999, 2001 and 2004 respectively, as well as multiple errors in a paper published in Nature in 2009. The panel suggested that this might be indicative of suboptimal oversight and management by Tessier-Lavigne rather than direct misconduct, but he was also criticised for failing to correct the literature in a timely manner. Tessier-Lavigne accepted the findings and announced his resignation as the president of Stanford last month.
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