He thought no-one would notice

July 19, 2023 1:58 PM

Stanford president resigns over manipulated research, will retract at least three papers. Marc Tessier-Lavigne failed to address manipulated papers, fostered unhealthy lab dynamic, Stanford report says. [SLTheStanfordDaily] This is a breaking story and will be updated.
posted by heatherlogan (56 comments total)

This follows February's news that an [i]nternal review found ‘falsified data’ in Stanford President’s Alzheimer’s research, colleagues allege.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:04 PM on July 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

that guy. that fuckin' guy. i always knew he was bad news.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:06 PM on July 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

There was no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself manipulated data in the papers reviewed, the report concluded, nor that he knew about manipulation at the time, but he “has not been able to provide an adequate explanation” for why he did not correct the scientific record when presented the opportunity on multiple occasions. In his statement, Tessier-Lavigne wrote that he was “gratified that the Panel concluded I did not engage in any fraud or falsification of scientific data.”
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:14 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

According to Jerry Yang, chair of the Stanford Board of Trustees

just did a spit-take on that one
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:15 PM on July 19, 2023 [9 favorites]

Just to be clear, the 'manipulated research' took place at the private company Genentech (and before), not at Stanford University. Tessier-Lavigne became president of Stanford after he was no longer a Genentech executive.
posted by heatherlogan at 2:34 PM on July 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

lmao
posted by grobstein at 3:09 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

Timnit Gebru:
Us: We get fired with people citing some vague citations we missed and our work being "sub par" in spite of the thoroughness we display,

Dudes like this one: "He will also retract or issue lengthy corrections to five widely cited papers for which he was principal author after a Stanford-sponsored investigation found “manipulation of research data.”" and still gets to resign on his terms being called someone with "honor" and such.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:16 PM on July 19, 2023 [31 favorites]

Elisabeth Bik's actions and bravery exemplify what science SHOULD be about, but too often isn't.
posted by lalochezia at 3:22 PM on July 19, 2023 [15 favorites]

Here's the report to the Stanford Board of Trustees' Special Committee [95-page pdf].
posted by heatherlogan at 3:43 PM on July 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

was no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself manipulated data in the papers reviewed[…]Tessier-Lavigne wrote that he was “gratified that the Panel concluded I did not engage in any fraud or falsification of scientific data.”

Leaping from absence of evidence to evidence of absence.
posted by clew at 3:54 PM on July 19, 2023 [10 favorites]

Mod note: removed a few derailing comments by request/permission. Carry on.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:57 PM on July 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

>was no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself manipulated
>data in the papers reviewed[…]Tessier-Lavigne wrote that he
>was “gratified that the Panel concluded I did not engage in any
>fraud or falsification of scientific data.”

Leaping from absence of evidence to evidence of absence.

Going from "failed to retract papers" to "falsified scientific research" would be a pretty big leap too.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:13 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

There's a lot missing from this story, in particular who did manipulate the research and when. It is implied that it was due to him fostering a bad atmosphere in a lab but at no point is it stated that the data manipulation happened there. Did he have anything to do with the data collection at all, or was he just using it?

Papers are seldom written by one person and it would be interesting to know what consequences, if any, the coauthors are suffering.

And one wonders if his failure to speak up on the compromised papers was as much about protecting other people from exposure as it was about his own ego.

But it's all supposition at this point. I hope a final report is released.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:22 PM on July 19, 2023

The final report has been released; I linked to it above. It answers a large portion of your questions.
posted by heatherlogan at 4:32 PM on July 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

The final report has been released; I linked to it above. It answers a large portion of your questions.

Doh! Both Google and basic reading skills failed me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:35 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

The report as quoted didn’t make the leap in one direction; T-L as quoted says they did make the leap in the other direction.
posted by clew at 4:35 PM on July 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

The report as quoted didn’t make the leap in one direction; T-L as quoted says they did make the leap in the other direction.

Perhaps I misunderstood the implication of your comment. To me it seems like an attempt to cast doubt on his innocence in the matter of data manipulation.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:48 PM on July 19, 2023

Someone once remarked that another Stanford senior administrator, Persis Drell, had a name like a character from a Pynchon novel. "Marc Tessier-Lavigne" isn't too far off, although perhaps he fits better as someone from Neuromancer.
posted by doctornemo at 4:58 PM on July 19, 2023 [14 favorites]

If I understand correctly, the guy is admitting that he gave researchers the wrong incentives, and it led to malfeasance under his watch, and that this is enough to warrant the effective end of his career.

If his culpability extended further, then yes, that's not satisfactory, but holy shit, I am sooo happy to see a high executive actually step forward and accept adverse consequences for what happened on his watch.
posted by ocschwar at 5:18 PM on July 19, 2023 [1 favorite]

had a name like a character from a Pynchon novel

Let's focus on the actions of individuals, and not make fun of their names, which often reflect ethnic identities protected under human rights laws.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:25 PM on July 19, 2023 [14 favorites]

If I understand correctly, the guy is admitting that he gave researchers the wrong incentives, and it led to malfeasance under his watch

I think his admissions around the papers are pretty clear but it looks (and my reading skills are admittedly subpar today) as if he only says "we could have done better" about the lab situation.

Which is probably wise, as a full admission of responsibility would open Genentech to shareholder lawsuits and probably result in Genentech suing him as well.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:56 PM on July 19, 2023

If I understand correctly, the guy is admitting that he gave researchers the wrong incentives, and it led to malfeasance under his watch

His statement is here.

I don't want to assert I have the correct interpretation--I haven't been following this much--but honestly I came away scowling at a non-apology. He didn't do anything wrong personally, it wasn't reasonable to have expected him to catch the fraud, and it was all twenty years ago anyway.

I kind of figured the report left him in a "resign before you get fired" position.
posted by mark k at 6:15 PM on July 19, 2023 [8 favorites]

The craziest part of this story to me is that it was broken by a then-17-year-old first-year college student writing for the Stanford Daily (Theo Baker). The quality of their reporting on this issue is just incredible, and even more impressive coming from someone who hasn’t, say, spent the last decade immersed in academic science.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:53 PM on July 19, 2023 [23 favorites]

Academia needs to adopt the GLPs. A culture of quality isn't one you talk about, it's the one that your quality assurance auditor and testing facilities manager require investigations of deviation from SOPs in.

If I forget to log out of a PC and a coworker uses that PC but signs for everything with their initials and date? I get to open An Event and document what happened, why, when, with whom, and where. I have to make a good effort to identify a root cause (someone called me out because I'm Mr Fixit) and a corrective actions/preventative action (CAPA) to keep it from happening in the future. We know who actually did the work, they used their initials and date and there's a paper record they filled out as secondary verification. But this is still required AND GOOD. It's not an easily forgettable verbal record, it's logged into an auditable, unmodifiable (mostly) database of other events so we can run metrics/trending if standards appear to be sliding.

"Don't cut that corner again, anyway what's the rest of the data you got this week" is so far from that as to be questionably science. How much of our reproducibility crisis is from NEEDING to publish rather than requiring a Culture of Quality First? Yes, it's a little grating for someone in a graduate lab to be filling out a worksheet but also, they won't forget to set the ancient gel electrophoresis power supply to 240V instead of 120, ruining a weeks worth of work unless they ya know maybe fix it off the books yeah?
posted by Slackermagee at 6:58 PM on July 19, 2023 [9 favorites]

Of course he is no ordinary 17 year journalist. His father is Peter Baker, NY Times White House correspondent and Susan Glasser of The New Yorker.
posted by mmascolino at 6:59 PM on July 19, 2023 [24 favorites]

And by worksheet I mean, step by step, foolproof instructions. Made more foolproof by CAPAs that update the worksheet to eliminate possible error pathways. No lab notebooks, those are (the horror) Uncontrolled Documentation.

In an ideal world, the documentation should be completable by basically anyone! It should be literally foolproof, a guy off the street could follow these directions. Not so much in practice but that's why training and documentation of training is also in the GLPs (21CFR58, the EU version is more strict).
posted by Slackermagee at 7:01 PM on July 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

GLPs?

To me it seems like an attempt to cast doubt on his innocence in the matter of data manipulation.

I was just struck by the logical fallacy. Do you think an example of his self-interest overriding logical rigor would be relevant to the whole case? (Again, I haven’t read the whole documents, I’m only working from the quoted bit.)
posted by clew at 7:24 PM on July 19, 2023

Academia needs to adopt the GLPs. A culture of quality isn't one you talk about, it's the one that your quality assurance auditor and testing facilities manager require investigations of deviation from SOPs in.

I wholeheartedly agree, but note that in this case the data manipulation, etc are alleged to have taken place at Genentech, not Stanford. I'm glad that this case is seeing the light of day.
posted by Taro at 7:26 PM on July 19, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yup, Good Laboratory Practices, always paired with Good Documentation Practices (GDocPs as GDP is Good Distribution Practices if memory serves). GDocPs are: documents must be attributable, legible, contemporaneous, original, and accurate. Documents must be retrievable, accurate, etc etc throughout the data lifecycle. It's A Lot. But worth it!
posted by Slackermagee at 7:29 PM on July 19, 2023 [7 favorites]

Criminy, Slackermagee, at a well resourced R1 I couldn’t convince all my peers to back up their thesis data.
posted by clew at 7:48 PM on July 19, 2023 [10 favorites]

Academia needs to adopt the GLPs. A culture of quality isn't one you talk about, it's the one that your quality assurance auditor and testing facilities manager require investigations of deviation from SOPs in.

In the US, at least, GLP procedures are a term of art that mostly govern animal testing you'll use in FDA submissions. They simply wouldn't apply to a lot of basic research. Or, for that matter, applied research. Note from 21 CFR 58, "The term [nonclinical laboratory study] does not include basic exploratory studies carried out to determine whether a test article has any potential utility or to determine physical or chemical characteristics of a test article," which exclude at least 90% of work that comes out of academia. (Actually, most academic stuff precedes even this step, as you often don't have a "test article.")

I'm not saying academia can't use much better standards. I get really cranky about some things academics think are OK, but despite the name GxP requirements aren't generically applicable to everyone in a lab.
posted by mark k at 7:50 PM on July 19, 2023 [4 favorites]

I was just struck by the logical fallacy.

Fair enough. I apologize for projecting what I was thinking on to you.

Do you think an example of his self-interest overriding logical rigor would be relevant to the whole case?

No, not particularly. In my experience that’s a very common human behavior and is one of the reasons we have peer reviews, etc. Human beings are extremely prone to motivated reasoning.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:58 PM on July 19, 2023

So the guy has papers with falsified data across three different institutions, categorically said as recently as a year ago that the data and results weren't affected by anything, and we're still pretending that he's innocent of any wrongdoing?

If I were accused of a fraud that I legitimately wasn't involved in, I'd be bending over backwards to be transparent and open, to condemn anything found fraudulent, and just generally trying to distance myself from the issue. Instead, this guy is insisting that there is nothing wrong with any of his work, right up until the point where someone is issuing an official report that makes it untenable not to change his tune.

This guy may be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but his actions and words are enough to condemn him in my eyes.
posted by Dysk at 1:28 AM on July 20, 2023 [19 favorites]

"There was no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself manipulated data in the papers reviewed" in the same way that a getaway driver during a bank robbery didn't technically rob that bank.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 2:15 AM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

I felt like this was the most damming part of the article:
“Within weeks after the publication of” a 2001 article in the journal Science now thought to contain doctored imagery, the report said, a colleague in the field identified an error. “Dr. Tessier-Lavigne stated to the colleague in writing that he would take corrective action, including both contacting the journal and attempting to issue a correction…. He did not contact the journal and he did not attempt to issue an erratum, which is inadequate.”

So he knew there was falsified content in his paper, and he did nothing to correct it? And this sort of thing happened multiple times across his career? That is fraud. His career benefitted from these high profile publications, and even worse, they potentially misled the field for years, resulting in wasted time and resources as others tried to replicate or build upon the published findings. For shame, glad this came to light and kudos for the student paper for their journalism that from what I can tell triggered the investigation.
posted by emd3737 at 3:00 AM on July 20, 2023 [16 favorites]

in the same way that a getaway driver during a bank robbery didn't technically rob that bank.

I'm reminded of the Laurie Penny quote:

"John McAfee has never been convicted of rape and murder, but—crucially—not in the same way that you or I have never been convicted of rape or murder."

Tessier-Lavigne hasn't been found guilty of academic malpractice or fraud, buuuuut...
posted by Dysk at 3:41 AM on July 20, 2023 [14 favorites]

Between this and the case at Harvard and Dan Ariely’s long con as well, it’s clear that there is everyone in academia has really big incentive to commit serious research fraud and manipulate data. There’s just no incentive not to get cheat. Look what you get! Endowed chairs! Presidencies! Harvard!! Academia is so cutthroat and competitive and unfair, and it’s so easy to make shit up, and the incentives are so so big, it’s a wonder anyone is doing honest work
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:58 AM on July 20, 2023 [10 favorites]

Academia is so cutthroat and competitive and unfair, and it’s so easy to make shit up, and the incentives are so so big, it’s a wonder anyone is doing honest work

I'm not sure how to interprets this. He is one of the most successful cheaters but his cheating is not particularly clever or well done and nor is the other Ted talkers' cheating. But on the other hand what these cases represent are merely the most successful people who are bad enough at research fraud that they have been caught. What we need is some science looking at research fraud and who gets caught. Maybe someone should get on faking that.
posted by srboisvert at 4:59 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm not saying academia can't use much better standards. I get really cranky about some things academics think are OK, but despite the name GxP requirements aren't generically applicable to everyone in a lab.

Yup, this is, to me, akin to getting other car manufacturers on board with manufacturing controls and 6SE/whatever Ford called it decades ago. You could make cars without quality systems in place, but...
posted by Slackermagee at 5:14 AM on July 20, 2023

it’s a wonder anyone is doing honest work

Especially because it's work by experts for experts. If other experts in a field don't discover the deception, it's not likely anyone else will catch it, either.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:04 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Academia needs to adopt the GLPs. A culture of quality isn't one you talk about, it's the one that your quality assurance auditor and testing facilities manager require investigations of deviation from SOPs in.

Apart from the misapprehension of what GLP as described by Mark K, as applied to research it's important to note:

Virtuous systems will not save you from from vicious participants.

It is really non-trivial to catch determined cheaters. What science has to do is to stop assuming everyone is virtuous - because of the incentives mentioned above......and raise the bar for routine automated data checking backed up by paid analysts looking at edge cases, for some of the most obvious frauds, which are FAR too easy to perpetrate. See Bik's twitter and retraction watch if you want the scales peeled from your eyes.

I'm sympathetic to those who don't want to go down the route above - essentially fraud-checking people's work, because it destroys some aspects science's open culture, which despite all the snark and doom, is still VERY prevalent in many places in academia..... and should be something to celebrate. But it's clearly past the point where we can keep on doing what we've been doing.
posted by lalochezia at 7:04 AM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

Automated fraud checking is utterly routine for undergraduates here in the UK, and a lot of postgraduate work as well. Obviously better systems are needed, but the horse is already gone on the issue of just trusting people: we don't do that.

(That felt said, the number of times I have seen reticence to take appropriate action when academic malpractice is happening and detected is shocking. My advice to you is it someone had a degree from a UK institution in the last ten years*, you can't assume they know their subject. Many universities will have hard evidence that you didn't do any of the work yourself, and still pass you, because they want your money.)


*(possibly longer, but I can't personally verify this)
posted by Dysk at 7:11 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think pre-publication approval of studies maybe a part of the solution. It may prevent the torturing of data to get 'publishable' results. Along with a arxiv style repository for studies that failed. Something like, we tried this because we thought it was worthwhile but it didn't work. It may give other researchers ideas on improving the methodology and/or prevent them from going into similar unproductive rabbitholes, and give the original researchers something citable.
posted by indianbadger1 at 8:01 AM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

The long-range vision for Stanford announced by University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne in the spring of 2018 lists ethics as the first item under values.
posted by meehawl at 8:49 AM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

So the guy has papers with falsified data across three different institutions

Once again my reading may be off, but as far as I can tell all of the falsified data was in the three papers from Genentech. The other papers had mistakes.

categorically said as recently as a year ago that the data and results weren't affected by anything

Why would that be a problem? According to the findings he literally did not know that there were any problems with the data.

and we're still pretending that he's innocent of any wrongdoing?

I've have yet to see anyone in this thread suggesting that he is innocent of failing to correct papers after problems were found with them. He's lost his job over it and that's a good thing.

What unfortunately seems to required in this thread is some clarity about what he was accused and what he was found to actually have done. Or not done, as his transgression was not correcting papers.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:03 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

So he knew there was falsified content in his paper, and he did nothing to correct it? And this sort of thing happened multiple times across his career?

To be clear there was only falsified data in the Genentech papers. The other papers had mistakes that were made that he knew about but he failed to correct.

That actually makes it worse as far as I'm concerned. Not moving quickly to retract a paper that someone else screwed up with bad data is one thing -- maybe you were reluctant to expose other people. Failing to immediately fix your own screwups is pure ego.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:08 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

"There was no evidence that Tessier-Lavigne himself manipulated data in the papers reviewed" in the same way that a getaway driver during a bank robbery didn't technically rob that bank.

Or more like the getaway driver had no idea that he was helping rob a bank and when he found out twenty years later failed to turn himself in.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:11 AM on July 20, 2023

I get the impression that he didn't know about all this in the same way the top editors at UK redtops didn't know about phone hacking. The report found no evidence for, that is not itself evidence against. Especially not in light of the issues that have been raised with the investigation.
posted by Dysk at 10:21 AM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

A few people in this thread are seriously misrepresenting the findings of the scientific panel that investigated these incidents for the Stanford Board of Governors. The entire report is public and I have linked it above. From the report:

The phrase “manipulation of research data” as used throughout this report is intended to capture a variety of examples of improper scientific conduct including, for example, splicing of gel panels, digital manipulation of panel backgrounds, importation of blot results from a research record other than that associated with the paper in question, duplication of bands with or without alteration, and digital alteration of blots. Specific examples of manipulation of research data are discussed throughout this report and an appendix providing forensic detail for certain of these examples and select other instances of manipulation of research data is included with the report. See Appendix.

[...]

As to the five reviewed papers where Dr. Tessier-Lavigne was a principal author, the Scientific Panel has concluded that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne did not have actual knowledge of the manipulation of research data that occurred in his lab and was not reckless in failing to identify such manipulation prior to publication. Nonetheless, based on the available research record and other factors, each of these papers has serious flaws in the presentation of research data; in at least four of the five papers, there was apparent manipulation of research data by others.

Specifically, a group of three papers contain images that are the result of manipulation of research data (Cell ’99, Science ’01 Binding, Science ’01 Silencing). For example, a single blot image was re-used in what were represented to be three separate scientific experiments in Cell ’99, and a blot image from Cell ’99 was re-used in what was represented to be a different experiment in Science ’01 Silencing. Both of these examples have not previously been identified despite years of public scrutiny of the papers.

A fourth primary paper also contains images (which Dr. Tessier-Lavigne did not personally prepare) that indicate manipulation of research data (Nature ’04). And a fifth paper includes multiple errors in the work underlying the paper and the presentation of research data and methodology that, at a minimum, fall below customary standards of scientific rigor and process (Nature ’09).

[...]

The Scientific Panel has concluded that at various times when concerns with Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s papers emerged—in 2001, the early 2010s, 2015-16, and March 2021—Dr. Tessier-Lavigne failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record. These include: (1) failing to correct a duplicated image in Science ’01 Silencing, despite the duplication being made known to him within weeks after publication and his providing assurances at that time that he would seek a correction; (2) declining in 2016 to follow up with the journal Science to ensure it published corrections Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had drafted to attempt to address concerns raised in 2015-16 on PubPeer regarding the two Science ’01 papers (including the Science ’01 Silencing duplication first identified in 2001); (3) deciding again not to pursue the same corrections when concerns arose again on PubPeer in March 2021; and (4) pursuing a strategy of subsequent publication to address the inaccuracies in the model of neurodegeneration presented in Nature ’09 without issuing a direct correction or retraction to alert the field in a clear fashion.

posted by heatherlogan at 10:29 AM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]

I think pre-publication approval of studies maybe a part of the solution.

I am hopeful - but skeptical - that efforts in this direction in my own discipline of educational research will be effective and meaningful. The U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Statistics has a nice set of standards that includes this and several other good practices. I don't know how influential this and related efforts are in changing research practices. I also don't know how much impact this is having on graduate education and professional preparation. But I hope there will be good movement in this direction.
posted by ElKevbo at 11:02 AM on July 20, 2023

Cool, can we do Larry Summers next? Oh wait sorry, macro economics is pure bullshit all the way down, so he plays by the rules.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:21 PM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

The Daily is also reporting that the Stanford inquiry left out several sources that alleged additional misconduct.

Some witnesses to alleged incidents of research misconduct in Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s lab would not talk to the committee investigating his research after being told their anonymity was not guaranteed, The Daily learned. The Daily also obtained email records showing that the committee was aware of additional allegations that it did not disclose in its report, released Wednesday morning.

posted by grobstein at 4:44 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Or more like the getaway driver had no idea that he was helping rob a bank and when he found out twenty years later failed to turn himself in.

From the report, posted above: "the duplication being made known to him within weeks after publication"

So I'll amend my metaphor. It's like him driving a group of friends to a bank, not knowing what they'll do there. Turns out they robbed the bank and he's now the getaway driver. And he goes, "I'm fine with this."
posted by Pyrogenesis at 11:28 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

A vastly more effective way to solve this problem is to change of the enforced scarcity of resources and there committenly low funding lines to simply funding researchers to do research. Instead of a few superstars bringing tens of millions of dollars a year, there are far more people being funded at a level that would support, say, 2 grad students and two postdocs. This funding is long term, not tied to desperation. Would is cost billions? sure. Do we have it? absolutely, if we are willing to give Raytheon execs just a tiny bit less money.
posted by rockindata at 5:49 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]

Let's focus on the actions of individuals, and not make fun of their names, which often reflect ethnic identities protected under human rights laws.

Heh. As an academic who researches academia, believe me, I'm all about talking about these individuals' actions. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, I spend time analyzing the structures which enable or stymie them.

But thank you for the free bit of tone policing.
posted by doctornemo at 11:56 AM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

it’s clear that there is everyone in academia has really big incentive to commit serious research fraud and manipulate data. There’s just no incentive not to get cheat. Look what you get! Endowed chairs! Presidencies! Harvard!! Academia is so cutthroat and competitive and unfair, and it’s so easy to make shit up, and the incentives are so so big, it’s a wonder anyone is doing honest work

The incentives are immense. But let me add a few more details:

-These are incentives for research. There isn't really an equivalent set of career goodies for teaching, which is the occupation of a great deal of academics.

-Monitoring and preventing this is one of peer review's purposes. Surprisingly, peer review has only come up once in this thread (bravo, Tell Me No Lies).

-Making the incentives worse is the mix of increasing pressures on the American academy. Beyond the media-beloved and hierarchy-owning handful of elite universities, many institutions are facing financial pressures from many directions: demographic changes, state government allocations, deferred maintenance, political stresses, etc. Competition for resources is heating up, and the appetite for collaboration isn't great. As you say, incentives.
posted by doctornemo at 12:06 PM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]