Case Study 4Erata Errors in Previous Research The research g

Case Study 4:Erata (Errors in Previous Research The research group that you recently joined published a couple of papers on an important discovery in two different high impact journals. As a new graduate student you are given the task of reproducing and extending the work of your advisor and a post-doc in the lab. After several weeks of experimentation, you realize that you cannot reproduce the work reported earlier. You think you even have an explanation for the emor Questions to answer: 1) Come up with three reasons that might explain why you are not able to reproduce the work. 2) You put together all the work have accumulated to present during lab After your presentation, your and the post-doc insinuate that the replicate the data is your fault. They think this happened because you are new to and are still that this What do you say in response? Can you \"prove is not your fault? 3) You are thinking about talking to someone else in the department, but are wary of reporting this discrepancy. Is there someone that you can tum to? How can you protect yourself? 4) In your opinion, do you think the journal should be alerted to this? Do you have a greater responsibility to the overall field and the scientific community? Explain your reasoning

Solution

1. There are three possible explanations for such an error. The first explanation is that the research was a fake one to increase the number of high-impact publications by the superiors.This comes under the range of scientific misconduct and has occured previously in case of one of the largest scientific frauds, the STAP (stimulus triggered acquisition of pluripotency) fraud. No ethical researcher can possibly indulge in such practices and one must have enough evidence to prove such a claim. The second explanation could be the lack of communication. For example, the researchers could have used specific types of materials instead of generic ones, leading to novel results. But the entire information was probably not provided, resulting in a different result all together. The last possible explanation for the different set of results can be human error. Any mistake during measurements, unit conversions, equipment settings, and even the state of the general maintenance can highly affect the outcome of various experiments.

2. The best way to tackle this would be to ask them to demonstrate the part where the observations of the two sets of experiments start to deviate from each other. Wether the reason was a mistake in the techniques, protocol or with the experiment itself, it can be uncovered by having the superiors recreate the experiment.

3. The best way to protect oneself would be to contact the colleagues of the researcher one is working under and explain the scenario, while remembering to withold sensitive experimental data. The last option, if everything else fails, is to speak directly to the management with all the possible evidence.

4. No, the journal should not be alerted unless its proven that the experimental results were either fabricated or not reproducible, as a retraction by a journal is a several backlash to one\'s scientific career and can very well end it. Such a step is grave but must be taken if one has clear evidence.