The Studies Show Podcast
The Studies Show
Episode 14: Scientific fraud
15
2
0:00
-1:09:40

Episode 14: Scientific fraud

Why do scientists sometimes make stuff up?
15
2

With major (alleged!) misconduct cases happening at some of the biggest US universities, scientific fraud has been in the news a lot recently. If you’re a scientist you’re supposed to be discovering the truth - so why do some scientists (allegedly - please don’t sue us!) just make all their results up?

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss some outrageous instances of scientific fraud, and how they were discovered. They look at all the reasons a scientist might decide to break the rules and falsify or fabricate their data - and talk about ways we might try and prevent these scientific crimes in future.

*EDIT 22 October 2023: In the podcast we say that Eric Stewart’s papers were retracted for “fraudulent data”. Whereas he has been accused of fraud by at least one of his co-authors (and others), and whereas he claims to have lost all the original data files so they can’t be checked, it’s not correct to say this is why his studies were retracted, as per the publishers’ retraction notes. They were retracted for gross errors and incompetence rather than fraud.

The Studies Show is sponsored by the i, the UK’s smartest daily newspaper. You can get a money-off deal on digital subscriptions—which include full access to all Stuart’s science writing—by following this special podcast link.

The Studies Show is also sponsored by Works in Progress, an online magazine about science, technology, and human progress. Did you know that, in addition to the main magazine, Works in Progress has a Substack called Notes on Progress, with shorter pieces on the same themes? You can find Notes on Progress right here.

Show notes

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

Discussion about this podcast

The Studies Show Podcast
The Studies Show
A weekly podcast about the latest scientific controversies, with Tom Chivers and Stuart Ritchie