Blog Comments

Kinetica Online is pleased to provide direct links to commentaries from our senior editor Dr. Steven Pelech has posted on other blogs sites. Most of these comments appear on the GenomeWeb Daily Scan website, which in turn highlight interesting blogs that have been posted at numerous sites in the blogosphere since the beginning of 2010. A wide variety of topical subjects are covered ranging from the latest scientific breakthroughs, research trends, politics and career advice. The original blogs and Dr. Pelech’s comments are summarized here under the title of the original blog. Should viewers wish to add to these discussions, they should add their comments at the original blog sites.

The views expressed by Dr. Pelech do not necessarily reflect those of the other management and staff at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. However, we wish to encourage healthy debate that might spur improvements in how biomedical research is supported and conducted.

Scientific Misconduct

Six Degrees of Scientific Misconduct

Bloggers have debated over how Marc Hauser, a high-profile and prolific researcher that was caught allegedly fabricating data, should be punished, including whether he should be exiled from science or be able to be redeemed. S. Pelech comments that the falsification of data is seen as a very serious offense in the scientific community, because scientists formulate their research plans around what is currently known, and a great deal of time, energy and resources can be wasted. However, minor falsification of data is probably pretty wide spread and is inherent in "hypothesis-driven" research, but fortunately the self-correcting nature of scientific research will eventually get to the truth of the matter. Read More...