I was asked to talk to a research ethics seminar about the Diederik Stapel fraud case. I pulled together a few links to circulate to the class, but I thought I’d put up a blog post and see if anyone has any other suggestions. I am especially interested in commentary and recommendations (rather than straight news coverage).
Here is what I have so far:
Jennifer Crocker ponders the slippery slope from corner-cutting to outright fraud (see also this short version)
Jelte Wicherts proposes that mandatory data sharing could prevent fraud. (And see his empirical study of data-sharing and research quality.)
Brent Roberts offers a long list of problematic practices in psychology, including undervaluing replication (see my thoughts on replication here), selective reporting, HARKing, and more.
Interviews with various psychologists (esp. Eric-Jan Wagenmakers) about problems with NHST and valuing surprising/counterintuitive findings
Andrew Gelman compares Stapel to other cheaters
Yours truly on whether our top journals have incoherent missions that produce perverse incentives.
Maybe this is all because psychology isn’t a real science. Benedict Carey of the New York Times, editorializing in a news story, suggests that psychology badly needs an overhaul. Hank Carey of Science 2.0 thinks social psychology is too fuzzy. Andrew Ferguson of the Weekly Standard detects a tendency of journalists and psychologists to like gimmicky-but-meaningless findings, which he calls The Chump Effect.
Did the liberal / progressive message of Stapel’s work help it escape scrutiny? Retraction Watch suggests the possibility; Rush Limbaugh has no doubt.
What other commentary and recommendations are floating around?
Update 8/15/2012: Add this commentary by Jenny Crocker and Lynne Cooper to the list: Crocker, J., & Cooper, M.L. (2011). Addressing scientific fraud. Science, 334, 1182.
The Hardest Science 