Should We Trust Science?

"Cheating in science has been in the news lately. The Office of Research Integrity — which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — punishes on the order of a dozen scientists a year for different sorts of misconduct, such as plagiarism and making up results, according to the founders of one watchdog group."

"According to the same op-ed piece, everyday, on average, a scientific paper gets retracted because of misconduct."

"For many, this is a cause for alarm and even pessimism."

"There have been numerous high-profile cases in recent years that have had lasting damage, not only on the public's trust in science, but also on the lives and careers of people working in science."

"Yoshiko Sasai, for example, took his own life after his highly publicized paper on stem cells turned out to be flawed. And, although former Harvard psychology professor Marc Hauser was found to have been solely responsible for misconduct in his lab, it is hard to believe that his students don't continue to pay the price for the errors as they seek to establish their own careers in science."