Ben Goldacre Quotes

Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards.

Scientific fraud, plagiarism, and ghost writing are increasingly being reported in the news media, creating the impression that misconduct has become a widespread and omnipresent evil in scientific research.

Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud?

Selling drug secrets violates a trust that is fundamental to the integrity of both scientific research and our financial markets.

We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it.

To address questions of scientific responsibility does not necessarily imply that one needs technical competence in a particular field (e.g. biology) to evaluate certain technical matters.

The falsification of scientific data or analysis is always a serious matter.

I was shocked to find that there were actually climate scientists who wouldn't share the raw data, but would only share their conclusions in summary graphs that were used to prove their various theories about planet warming. In fact I began to smell something really bad, and the worse that smell got, the deeper I looked.

Evolutionary psychology has often been a field whose most prominent practitioners get embroiled in controversy - witness the 2010 case of Harvard professor Marc Hauser, whose graduate students came forward to say he'd been faking evidence for years.

Would people cheat on climate science? Sure. Because all it is a model into which there are 2,000 variables, and if I want this outcome, I nudge that one up a little and down a little bit, and there you go.

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

Scientifically Flawed Testimony -- Inaccurate Testimony -- Testimony Beyond the Examiner's Expertise -- Improper Preparation of Laboratory Reports -- Insufficient Documentation of Test Results -- Scientifically Flawed Reports -- Inadequate Record Management and Retention System -- Failures by Management to resolve serious and credible allegations of incompetence

My obligation is to disclose companies in which I'm an officer, a director, or an investor.

You can't publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism.

Brokerage firms and their executives cannot use threats regarding research activities as a way to obtain investment banking business. The threat to drop research coverage if Piper were not selected as the lead underwriter for a secondary offering was totally inappropriate and undermines the integrity of the market.

Those in positions of scientific authority in the West who have collaborated with this new Lysenkoism because they felt they must be politically correct, and/or because of the money, publicity, and recognition to be gained, have disgraced themselves and the integrity of their institutions, organizations and publications.

Although no explanation can be expected to be satisfactory, it remains a possibility among others that Mendel was deceived by some assistant who knew too well what was expected. This possibility is supported by independent evidence that the data of most, if not all, of the experiments have been falsified so as to agree closely with Mendel's expectations.

To be sure, nothing is more important to the integrity of the universities . . . than a rigorously enforced divorce from war-oriented research and all connected enterprises.

Error is far more common than fraud which probably comprises 1 percent or a tenth of a percent of the literature.

I do not believe that it could never be justifiable to experiment on a brain-damaged human.

Still, it is an error to argue in front of your data. You find yourself insensibly twisting them round to fit your theories.

It's a very bad idea for scientific conclusions to be accepted because they fit with the political values of a group of researchers.

When you run for president you have certain obligations. One of them would be to avoid even the appearance of conflicts of interest.

A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue.

scientists ... resist ... making more of the data than the data make of themselves.