Comments on: Don’t be Fooled by the Factor http://acrlog.org/2006/06/05/dont-be-fooled-by-the-factor/ Blogging by and for academic and research librarians Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:32:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Barbara Fister http://acrlog.org/2006/06/05/dont-be-fooled-by-the-factor/comment-page-1/#comment-6595 Barbara Fister Thu, 08 Jun 2006 12:29:04 +0000 http://acrlblog.org/2006/06/05/dont-be-fooled-by-the-factor/#comment-6595 This is in some ways unsurprising but also deeply troubling. If science truly is a communal effort to share information in order to further knowledge - which idealistically is what publishing in this area is all about - then these practices are deeply unethical. They are right up there with reporting fraudulent findings and will feed the public's distrust of science. Given the present trend to manipulate scientific data so it provides the results you want or discredit it to avoid results you don't (see <a href="http://democrats.reform.house.gov/features/politics_and_science/index" rel="nofollow">Henry Waxman's site</a> for view from the House minority), we really, truly don't need that now. This is in some ways unsurprising but also deeply troubling. If science truly is a communal effort to share information in order to further knowledge – which idealistically is what publishing in this area is all about – then these practices are deeply unethical. They are right up there with reporting fraudulent findings and will feed the public’s distrust of science.

Given the present trend to manipulate scientific data so it provides the results you want or discredit it to avoid results you don’t (see Henry Waxman’s site for view from the House minority), we really, truly don’t need that now.

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