Surely you can see the difference between research done by scientists actively promoting the Nazi ideology and research done by scientists in universities and elsewhere (not concentration camps) with no totalitarian state agenda imposed upon them?
I was trying to be polite and mentioned examples from my own country.
You will be able to find other examples from other countries as well when it comes to genetical or medical research, and not only cases where scientists decided to ignore the laws imposed on them by democratic states in order to be able to conduct their research. It happens all around the world, thankfully not on a daily basis but it happens. Science and moral are not automatically linked, just as being a human being and being a moral being is not automatically linked. If it was that way, we'd live in a much better place.
Maybe one should read this article carefully: From BMJ 1994;308(6924):283 (29 January) - BMJ being the British Medical Journal. I hope this is a source which qualifies as "serious":
The scandal of poor medical research -- Altman 308 (6924): 283 -- BMJ
"The scandal of poor medical research
We need less research, better research, and research done for the right reasons.
What should we think about a doctor who uses the wrong treatment, either wilfully or through ignorance, or who uses the right treatment wrongly (such as by giving the wrong dose of a drug)? Most people would agree that such behaviour was unprofessional, arguably unethical, and certainly unacceptable.
What, then, should we think about researchers who use the wrong techniques (either wilfully or in ignorance), use the right techniques wrongly, misinterpret their results, report their results selectively, cite the literature selectively, and draw unjustified conclusions? We should be appalled. Yet numerous studies of the medical literature, in both general and specialist journals, have shown that all of the above phenomena are common.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 This is surely a scandal.
When I tell friends outside medicine that many papers published in medical journals are misleading because of methodological weaknesses they are rightly shocked. Huge sums of money are spent annually on research that is seriously flawed through the use of inappropriate designs, unrepresentative samples, small samples, incorrect methods of analysis, and faulty interpretation. Errors are so varied that a whole book on the topic,
7 valuable as it is, is not comprehensive; in any case, many of those who make the errors are unlikely to read it."
If you'd care to follow the link, you'll see that the author D G Altman, a reknown scientist, gives various published sources for his statements. Some posters here make it sound as if such errors are very, very rare and that it's absurd or offending to even think about such a possibility. But Altman states:
"The effects of the pressure to publish may be seen most clearly in the
increase in scientific fraud,
10 much of which is relatively minor and is likely to escape detection. There is nothing new about the message of data or of data torture, as it has recently been called
11 - Charles Babbage described its different forms as long ago as 1830.
12 The temptation to behave dishonestly is surely far greater now, when all too often the main reason for a piece of research seems to be to lengthen a researcher's curriculum vitae. Bailar suggested that there may be greater danger to the public welfare from statistical dishonesty than from almost any other form of dishonesty.
13 Evaluation of the scientific quality of research papers often falls to statisticians. Responsible medical journals invest considerable effort in getting papers refereed by statisticians; however, few papers are rejected solely on statistical grounds.
14 Unfortunately, many journals use little or no statistical refereeing -
bad papers are easy to publish."
Maybe you are able to accept now that it's not just Jo of Palatine's scientist husband and some of her contacts who believe that there are motives around to write in order to publish papers with questionable results? That a high-profile topic, which would do more than just lengthen the author's CV, may give an even higher motivation. That a case where results cannot be checked independantly afterwards for lack of samples would make it easier.
All that is written and thought of by me in general about the question of errors in scientific publishing, not as a judgment of the paper discussed here but as background knowledge that should be taken into account on evaluating the question if one DNA-analysis outweighs other facts that were reported by convincing sources including pictures like the rare occurance of a foot deformation which both AN and AA shared.
My point is simple: I don't discard the question if AN became AA on the base of that DNA-results alone. Others may do that. Okay. But still I'm convinced that I have the right to put background information from reliable sources into my reasoning, that I have a right to write about these reasonings in a thread called "Questions of Identity" and that I have a right to defend myself from accusations that I'm a dealer in "sly innuendos". I wonder what Prof. Altman is then?
