Science retracts major Arabidopsis paper

According to rumors from Umea, the red points in lab journal were discovered by some postdoc (not swedish) who accused Nilsson of fraud. Postdoc sent to Stockholm some report but this had no legal power since only rector has the right to contact swedish reseacrh council for ethical questions. Anyway, scandal was started and we kow how "hero" went out of situation

According to rumors from Umea, the "hero" was first exposed by some postdoc. The postdoc found in lab journals omitted points and accused Nilsson of fraud. He send letter directly to Stockholm but in this case it did not worked as official accusation as only rector could contact main officials directly. What hero did after that we all already know...

On November 13, 2007 the Swedish King presented the Marcus Wallenberg Prize (MWP) to Ove Nilsson. Mr. Marcus Wallenberg, Chairman of the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (MWF), praised Nilsson for gaining fundamental knowledge that will translate into business opportunities for the future forest industry (1).

However, Nilsson so far has refused to answer some basic questions on how his most important "discovery" was made? (2) MWF also failed to ask Nilsson some tough questions to find out what role he actually played in "his" research (3-4). More curiously, to save a medal for Nilsson and to cheat on the King, MWF has resorted to an alteration of history (5).

The grand award ceremony might have some shining moments especially when it was attended by a King. However, that evil-prevailing day is one dark day in science.

Nilsson won some unethical money. Will he still be able to do any ethical research?

Full-length version free at
LINK

Towards the Goal of Maintaining Integrity and Ethics in Science and Society
- An Open Letter to the King of Sweden

Your Royal Highness:

Recently, a highly worrying scandal has touched both Swedish and world science. Ove Nilsson, a Swedish citizen and professor at Umea University, has retracted a highly publicized publication that initially appeared in the established scientific journal Science. Although being primarily responsible for this mischief since Nilsson was the laboratory director for the work now retracted, he chose to put all the blame on his Chinese post-doc Tao Huang. On behalf of the readership of Scientific Ethics, I am now addressing you in the sincere wish that, similar to the classic role of a king both in fiction and reality as being the most judicious person in a country, you as the King of Sweden will bring light in this affair such that the noble and truthful pursuit of scientific research around the world, as a crucial endeavor of the entire society, will not suffer further damage.

The misconduct was initially exposed in an open dispute between Nilsson ? the corresponding author for taking all the credit of a major "discovery" and then the non-corresponding author for denying any role in a major "fakery" and Huang ? the non-corresponding author for making the discovery and still a responsive author for defending his data processing over the retraction of the so-called "third most important breakthrough" in Science in 2005. The misconduct includes Nilsson's unethical acquisition of inside information on his scientific competitors and then his strong push of his research lab into making "earlier" discovery for "first" publication.

A formal protest was sent to Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (MWF) asking it to perform a thorough investigation on this Nilsson-Science gate case and release the result of this investigation to public. However, not only MWF did not perform such an investigation, it has also engaged in repeated alterations of its original award announcement so that the emphasis of the now retracted 2005 "breakthrough discovery" is nowhere to be found in the new announcement still bearing the original date. MWF now claimed that any other single discovery made by Nilsson is worthy of the Marcus Wallenberg Price (MWP). However, everyone who read the original announcement knows why Nilsson was chosen for the award. The history alteration misconduct by MWF is now fully exposed and the whole case is now called the Nilsson-Science-MWF gate.

In my letter to MWF I urged them not putting you into an uncomfortable position by asking you to present the award to Nilsson. Unfortunately, this embarrassing moment is likely to come because MWF stated that the award ceremony will still be held later this month. Thus, in order to present this from happening, I plea you to take a close look at this issue and ask both Nilsson and MWF to provide you their answers to the questions asked by international scientists before you will agree to attend the award ceremony.

In former times, a King used to be the ultimate judge over any major and minor issues in his country. Although such judgment is now normally handled by a democratic judicial system I wish you can actively aid in this process in your quality as an independent and just sovereign for the benefit of (young) scientists who need (ethical) orientation and positive examples/role models as well as for the purpose of genuine progress in both science and society as a whole.

Sincerely yours,

Shi V. Liu
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Ethics (LINK
SVL8SE@im1.biz

On November 6, 2007 Marcus Wallenberg Foundation finally sent me an official response on my protest (on behalf of readers of Scientific Ethics) against the award of MWP award to Ove Nilsson.

The response stated that ?the Board is content, after rigorous investigation that Professor Nilsson is indeed worthy of the Prize and it will be awarded later this month?. The response argued that ?the original nomination of Professor Nilsson referred to several components of his research of which the ?messenger? story was only one ? the retraction of the paper in Science did not reduce the case for the award of the Prize??.

However, I wish readers to read the following article just published in Scientific Ethics (LINK to see if MWF?s conclusion is correct and, if MWF itself has committed some misconduct.

Why Did MWF Alter Its Award Announcement?
− Revelation of a New High-Level Misconduct

LINK

LINK

Nature just published an Editorial "Accountability of authors" and posted it (by Editor Maxine Clarke) on Nature's blog "Nautilus". There were eight comments already posted there when I submitted my comment on November 1, 2007. However, after submission of my comment which showed a link to the Nilsson's high-level misconduct of grabbing all credit but denying all the responsibility, not only I did not see my comment appearing but also I found that the existing comments were removed. On November 2nd, the blogging was essentially unplugged and the number of the comments is amazingly reset to zero! Speaking of censorship and publishing misconduct, Nature is really on top of the world. Speaking of publishing misconduct, would the alteration of a publishing history be a misconduct?

Nilsson and Science have been pressed to reveal their deals in the Nilsson-Science-gate incidence of a high-level misconduct in science. However, so far they both have kept their mouths tightly closed despite the huge public demand on their revelation of the truth. The Marcus Wallenberg Foundation which gave Nilsson a prize received a formal complaint and issued a reply that it will inform me the outcome of its evaluation in the due course. However, so far I have not seen any sign of a due course being taken.
Meanwhile it is not known whether Nilsson has made any experimental observations that will settle his "misconception" claimed in the retraction of his breakthrough finding published by Science.
Apparently Nilsson, Science and other related parties have taken a "silencing to nill" strategy so that their misconduct will be less known. However, I wish to tell them that it will not work for the long run because they are now under life-time watch of some alternative routes of scientific communication.
History will record this Nilsson-Science-gate incidence as a typical high-level misconduct in scientific research.

Many people have asked me what the status is on the protest against Ove Nilsson?s winning of the 2007 Marcus Wallenberg Prize. I am also wondered about the outcome of my protest submitted to the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

Now the planned time for the 2007 Marcus Wallenberg Prize awarding ceremony has passed. But so far I have not seen any news about this ceremony or received any outcome notice for my protest.

Since I submitted a formal protest on August 19, 2007 to the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation against its awarding to Ove Nilsson I have received just a short response on August 22 (only after further inquiry) from an Assistant acknowledging the reception of my protest. She said that ?[W]e will get back to you in due course?.

On October 5, 2007, I emailed to that Assistant asking for the status of the evaluation of my protest by the Foundation. So far I have not received any response.

Apparently, the scheduled awarding ceremony was cancelled and thus the face of the King was saved from a major embarrassment. Also apparently, the service for a justice in science has been delayed. But the question is: will the justice be denied?

I wish remind Marcus Wallenberg Foundation that any inaction on this protest is an irresponsible behavior. Silencing over a misconduct is a support for that misconduct!

It has been said that if your paper is not published in CNS (Cell, Nature and Science) then your discovery is not significant.

Now I wish to say that if your misconduct is not contained in a publication in the CNS then your misconduct is not a high-level misconduct.

Why would scientists wish to publish in the CNS? It is because they have high impact factors.

Why would ?scientists? wish to commit high-level misconduct? It is because high-level misconduct is often immune from punishment which is focused largely on data manipulation-type low-level misconduct.

However, as stated Bruce Alberts and Kenneth Shine (Science 266: 1660-1661, 1994), ?even more damaging to the integrity of science are those behaviors that do not rise to the level of misconduct but nevertheless violate values held in common by the scientific community?. Why? They pointed out that ?by eroding the ethical foundations of research, the questionable behaviors can create an environment in which blatant misconduct in science becomes more likely?

More than a decade has passed since Alberts and Shine raised the concern for those more damaging behaviors. How is the situation now?

I must say that the situation has become even worse!

Not only those more harmful behaviors are still not considered even as misconducts but also those high-level misconducts dominated the central nerve system of modern scientific publishing.

As the impact factor scam becomes widely spread (Sci. Ethics 1: 72-73, 2006) and captures all scientists as its publication slave (EMBO Report 8: 792-793, 2007) the demand for publishing in CNS has also greatly increased. Thus, while scientists have long known that CNS are just some ?hot-news? journals or ?the tabloids?, as described in a great book ?The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science?, many of them still feel pressured to submit their research finding for publication by these journals even if history has often shown that these journals are anti-revolutionary in repeatedly rejecting truly great scientific discoveries (Logical Biol. 5: 279-286, 2005).

If publishing research finding especially revolutionary science is difficult in CNS because they are the ?normal science? journals (Medical Hypotheses 69: 967-969, 2007), then it is even more difficult to criticize the flawed papers and even outright cheatings contained in CNS.

The tight closure of the Nilsson-Science-Gate to public demand of a revelation of a high-level misconduct is just a tip of huge iceberg which has frozen scientific communication into some dark age of censorship and suppression. Under the ?collective? ban of CNS, not only revolutionary science is deprived its right for communicating to deserved readership but also some credit rubbers become glorified.

I wish that all scientists and public laymen read the following truth-revealing publications:

1. An Irresponsible and Non-Responsive Cell for Cell Research (Sci. Ethics 2: 86-91, 2007)
HTM (LINK
PDF (LINK

2. Nature's Instinct of Self-Protection (Sci. Ethics 2: 92-93, 2007)
HTM (LINK
PDF (LINK

3. Science's Unscientific Way of Handling Criticism (Sci. Ethics 2: 79-85, 2007)
HTM (LINK
PDF (LINK

4. Dissecting the Mind Setting of "Top" Journals in Treating Criticisms and Exposing Their Bad Habits in Scientific Publishing (Top Watch 2: 54-56, 2007)
HTM (LINK
PDF (LINK

5. This Outrageous Lie Has Got to Stop! (Sci. Ethics 2: 94-95, 2007)
HTM (LINK
PDF (LINK

6. The Dark Side of Amar Klar (Sci. Ethics 2: 96-101, 2007)
HTM (LINK
PDF (LINK

I wish all scientists to realize that CNS are not just some high impact factor journals but also high retraction journals (Sci. Ethics 1: 91-93, 2006). Their high retraction rates are not due to more post-publication scrutiny because many such criticisms are suppressed by these journals and thus their publications stood despite their flaws (EMBO Report 8: 792-793, 2007). Thus, it is time to perform some surgery on this central nerve system of scientific publishing!

Richard Smith, previously the editor of British Medical Journal, stated in his Commentary ?Reinventing the Biomedical Journal? (J. Neurosci. 26: 9837-9838, 2006) that ?Often the impact factor of the journal ? is wholly unscientific? and ?Most of them [journals] would die, which would be a great relief?. He even envisioned that ?Once the electronic age sweeps through, the journals will be very different?.

Let us work together to get rid off the outdated and even corrupted CNS and usher in a new era of scientific publishing.

Shi V. Liu, Truthfinding Cyberpress (LINK

Has the planned award ceremoney taken place? Why there is no news on it in the Internet?
Was the ceremony put on hold? Is there an investigation going on?
What is Nilsson doing now for science? Has he found out whether the retracted publication is really a lie based on "faked" data or a correct conclusion despite the mamipulation of the data?
When will Nilsson and Science tell the public how his paper was published in advance of the other earlier submitted and accepted papers?
Please do not let public hunger for results on these key questions!

A formal protesting letter was filed to the Marcus Wallenberg Prize selection committee and the Board of Directors for the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation. Let us wait to see what action will be taken by them and what decision will be made by them.

Meanwhile, pressure on Science will be built continuously until it gives an answer on its very likely editorial misconduct.

Dr. Liu, please post the final outcome on this page.

Dear Readers of The Scientists:

As the editor-in-chief of Scientific Ethics which has provided the most in-depth coverage of the Nilsson-Science Gate publishing scandal I wish to let your know that I have filed a formal letter protesting the awarding of the 2007 Marcus Wallenberg Prize to Ove Nilsson and requesting a formal investigations on all the alleged misconduct by Nilsson. This letter was already received by the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation.

Here I just wish to thank everyone for making great contributions to science by courageously expressing your frank opinions and to praise The Scientist for providing such an uncensored communication platform. I believe that history will remember this Nilsson-Science Gate incidence not only as a specific case of public protest against an individual misconducting scientist but a general declaration of a global war against the universal scientific corruption.

Regardless the outcome of this specific case, a grass-root movement is now formed and will spread out to every corner of scientific enterprise. This movement will drive unethical ?scientists? out of their money-making business and return an ethical environment for moral scientists to make their discoveries and, more importantly, communicate their discoveries freely without any worry of being robbed out of their deserved credit.

Sincerely yours,

Shi V. Liu MD PhD
Editor, Scientific Ethics (LINK
Apex, NC 27502 USA
SVL8SE@im1.biz

I suggest Swedish government to modernize the palace of its King so that it will have real-time access to the global information circulated around the world by the Internet (if the palace is not so equipped now). In this way, The King will have some direct perception on the real world rather than relying solely on some reports from his subordinates.



If the King of Sweden has read so many complaints against the misconduct by Nilsson, he may even refuse to present the Wallenberg Prize to Nilsson even if Nilsson made those reported discoveries.

It is really amazing how human civilization has progressed so far!

Nilsson cheated on Science for taking a sole discovering role (as evidenced by his sole corresponding author title and his sole recipient status of the Wallenberg Prize) and then the world for taking no scientific responsibility for the later ?discovery?-turned ?fakery? (as evidenced by his sole blame for all the misconduct to a single student of him). However, his repeated cheating was not even officially condemned at all, despite the overwhelming grass-root complains.

Now he may continue his cheating all the way up to the King of Sweden. If he dares to do that, he will eventually collect a severe punishment because, with a good heritage from the medieval time, I do not believe that the King of Sweden would like being cheated.

Unofficially the Editor-in-Chief of Science has been regarded as a King in science because his like or dislike affect the trends of scientific research in the days of publish or perish and impact factors count more than discoveries. Thus, despite the fact that Science has been the No. 1 journal/magazine in the world in publishing retractions and has been repeated infected with the most ?spectacular? scandals in scientific history, its Editor-in-Chief has never been blamed for anything. As a matter of fact, he has suppressed publication of any criticisms aimed at himself and his editorial team.

The so-called ?external? investigation on the editorial process handling the famous Hwang stem cell research as well as publishing scandal in Science actually praised Science and made its Editor-in-Chief so delighted that he published an only Editorial he has written on Hwang?s publishing scandal due to Science?s deficiency, too. Now with more retractions since then and with a much more clear case of likely editorial misconduct in Science, this same Editor-in-Chief has not only rejected many submissions from scientists and editors of other journals but also totally ignored the reports and comments in this well-established and reputable scientific magazine.

Thus, considering the huge impact of the Nilsson case to global scientific community and the arrogance of the king of science, it may be necessary for the King of Sweden to write directly to the Editor-in-Chief of Science. The King of Sweden should use his political power and legal authority to press the king of science to do a through internal investigation on the editorial handling of the later-submitted-but-earlier-published Nilsson paper. The results of this internal investigation should be reported to the King of Sweden and, if possible and should be, the whole world.

If the King of science is reluctant to do this essential duty, then he should be pressed to step down immediately and let other capable person to take his position.

So far Nilsson, Science and AAAS have all pretended of seeing nothing and hearing nothing despite this world-wide condemnation on the high-level scientific misconduct and the strongest outcry ever expressed in the scientific history for justice in scientific ethics.
Now the award ceremony is approaching, the only chance for enforcing ethic standard in science is for the Marcus Wallenberg Foundation to cancel the planned ceremony and to start a formal and thorough investigation. Then, depending on the outcome of that investigation (which should be made public), the Foundation can resume the award ceremony if Nilsson is found of guilty-free or take back the award if Nilsson is indeed guilty.
This prudent action is necessary not only because it is good for setting up a good example for maintaining a solid foundation of ethical scientific research but also because it may save the King of Sweden from a major public embarrassment.

As a senior investigator in a national research institute, I know exactly the game. On the one hand, it is the Brodie type of lab boss if there is credit to grab. Before submitting for publication Axelrodﾴs p450 enzyme breakthru discovery, Brodie told his personnel: authorship goes alphabetically, ...except that I go first. Accordingly, Axelrod, the actual discoverer, had to go second. Although Julie (that was how Axelrod was called by his labmates) could go on to collect his Nobel for another discovery later on, it could not wipe out the earlier suffered first authorship scoop. On the other hand, if there is some error surfacing post-publication, it is the Nilsson type of lab chief who chickens out and looks for (Asian) post-doc scapegoats.
Thus, although I do not entirely disagree with the contributor from Sweden (derfla) that, in some cases, having misbehaving peers repent their misconduct through self-imposed negative consequences may send out the right message, I still advocate as a general rule the institution and implementation of more effective penalties not only for such misdeeds as data fabrication and falsification, but also for more common infringements such as the misappropriation of credit for a given scientific discovery. Only a set of binding rules will effectively deter scientists, especially those formally directing a research lab, from committing misconduct.

If Ove Nilsson chooses to shift the blame from his faulty supervision of the work recently retracted from Science to some fictional deficiencies of his Chinese post-doc, then I am truly ashamed for Sweden. In contrast, if Nilsson will opt to take his full responsibility by stepping down from his current position and also declining the upcoming Wallenberg award, he should be nominated for a first Nobel Prize in Ethics.

I wish to quote Judson's remark on David Baltimore, too.

"Consider Baltimore's tactics. He is a great scientist. He is also a great purveyor of the mystique of science and of the authority conferred by the Nobel price."(The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science)

Looking back at Baltimore's scientific career, he has been associated with at least three misconduct cases involving his students/collaborators. The first case is the Long case in 1980. Long faked certain results and was forced to resign. The second case is the famous Imanishi-Kari case in the middle 1980s. The result of a joint study by Imanishi-Kari and Baltimore reported in Cell was found as misrepresentation and the paper was retracted. However, due to Baltimore's strong defense and protection, the once guilty-found Imanishi-Kari was eventually removed from a misconduct charge and thus the case was remembered in history as the "Baltimore Affair". The third case is the Luk van Parijs case in 2005. Luk van Parijs was a postdoc of Baltimore and was sacked by MIT after admitting to fabricating and falsifying research data in a published scientific paper and several manuscripts and grant applications.

Judson commented that "At first glance, many instances of scientific fraud seem the results of failure of supervision: the big laboratory; the remote boss."(The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science) However, I really think Temin's remark on Baltimore is more appropriate in understanding what misconduct can also be. Temin was a co-winner of the same Nobel prize that Baltimore won. He made the following remark at his last stage of life:
"David's misconduct was －When an experiment is challenged no matter who it is challenged by, it's your responsibility to check. That is an ironclad rule of science, that when you publish something you are responsible for it."

As a research Baltimore has been irresponsible for several times when his (co-authored) publications were challenged. As an administrator (the President of AAAS who owns Science), will he also neglect his responsibility of finding out what was wrong with Science's rapid publication and inappropriate handling of Nilsson's flawed paper? Did he see the more serious and much high-level scientific misconduct there?

Earlier someone circulated an appeal for paying attention to the Nilsson/Science case to a group of powerful figures in science. David Baltimore, the current President of AAAS, was one recipient for this email.
However, so far I have not seen any action being taken by authorities of the scientific community. Why would scientists be so reluctant to (publicly) condemn this high-level misconduct?
In his book ?The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science? Horace F. Judson stated that now ?we are bombarded, saturated, harried by fraud?. He also quoted Edelman that ?David Baltimore is not a scientist, period.? Does Judson?s observation have any relevance to the odd phenomenon shown in the Nilsson/Science case?

The following description is a total fiction but does have some real implications.

The King of Science:
Nilsson,
I have heard many rumors about your great discovery. Now, before I give you the medal of a prestigous prize, I wish you to tell me nothing but the truth. If your discovery is true, why did you retract it? If your discovery is untrue, how dare you are to come here to collect the medal!

Nilsson's research breakthrough in Science was retracted by Science. But what about the Marcus Wallenberg Prize awarded to him mainly based on the same now retracted publication?

Please sign for a public plea to withdraw or withhold the Marcus Wallenberg Prize awarded to Nilsson.

See complete plea published in Scientific Ethics 2: 57, 2007

Direct link at

LINK

Shi V. Liu?s appeal to Ronald Kennedy to fix the peer review system in Science is too na￯ve. He should know this from his own writings on Kennedy (see the articles that I found in TFCP journals). Unless something dramatic happen in Science or in scientific publishing, the secret peer review system will still be operated in the old fashion way so that the beneficiaries of this system can continue to benefit from participating this so-called volunteering but truly high rewarding activity (see what Nilsson got for a ?top? journal high-profile publication and then a major award just because either his direct participation or his friends? participation in this process).

Please read Shi V. Liu?s other articles on Kennedy to see if his appeal to fix the peer review system is out of touch or simply day-dreaming.

LINK
LINK
LINK
LINK

There is no perfect place to live, not to say to do research and seek publication, in this world. But for the Editor-in-Chief of Science an urgent task should have been to fix the problematic peer review system. However, despite the frequent occurrence of high profile publishing scandals in Science, Kennedy still has not done anything to fix the problem and even refused to admit there are any serious problems. How long will Science remain as the world leader in publishing retractions? When will Science answer some serious questions regarding its editorial process in publishing a recently retracted high-profile paper?

Abstract for a paper published in Scientific Ethics 2(2) 55-56, 2007.

Direct link:

LINK

There is no perfect place to live, not to say to do research and seek publication, in this world. But for the Editor-in-Chief of Science an urgent task should have been to fix the problematic peer review system. However, despite the frequent occurrence of high profile publishing scandals in Science, Kennedy still has not done anything to fix the problem and even refused to admit there are any serious problems. How long will Science remain as the world leader in publishing retractions? When will Science answer some serious questions regarding its editorial process in publishing a recently retracted high-profile paper?

Abstract for a paper published in Scientific Ethics 2(2): 55-56, 2007.
Direct link is:
LINK

The opening of many cans of scientific worms by the TFCP IM1 website presented really some appalling scientific crimes other than the commonly seen research misconduct. These high-level scientific crimes should be dealt with more aggressively. However, I just found that such is not the case at all.

Please read a recently published public appeal from (again!) Shi V. Liu who is protesting an ?irresponsible decision? made by (believe it or not) ORI - the Office of Research Integrity.

This public appeal was published in another journal by TFCP which is (interesting) called as ?Pioneer?. This journal needs registration to read its papers and many papers are offered completely free (I mean the full-length versions).

The URL for the above public appeal is:

LINK

I was apparently overwhelmed by the rich contents and bold statements in Scientific Ethics and thus misplaced a publication in Top Watch (another good journal by TFCP) to Scientific Ethics.

It seems that Top Watch is a watch dog looking over other journals especially those ?top? journals. See what the introduction for this journal states:

Top Watch sits on top of all scientific journals and identifies top issues in scientific research and publishing for highlighted coverage. It particularly watches the impact-factor-wise very "top" journals to give early warnings against any potential mistake contained in their publications.

So while some journals will reject any legitimate criticism to their publications, there is a place to document these criticisms and history will make its judgment.

In the comment written by SciLaw, a suggestion was made that "Others, who have a stake in the integrity of peer-review system (i.e. Elsevier, Nature..), should press Science ...".

However, I just found out that Shi V. Liu had tried to ask Nature to publish his Correspondence on this matter but that submission was rejected.

Please read the entire Correspondence that was later published in Scientific Ethics (a very good place to learn many ethical issues concerning today's scientific community) by copying/typing the following URL into your web browser:

LINK

PI in scientific research world usually means the Principal Investigator.

In the old days, PI not only found the money to support the research but also did the investigation in the research. Thus, when a paper is written (mainly by the PI) for publication, the corresponding honor and also the responsibility for the publication is naturally assigned to the PI. If the publication reveal a real truth that is very important discovery then the PI will the undisputable candidate for any award given for that discovery.

However, if the corresponding author really being assigned to the Principal Investigator in all the scientific publications today?

No! It is absolutely not.

It is hard to argue that many corresponding authors are not the Principal Investigators when the publications are in their glory phase. As a matter of fact, all the corresponding authors of these publications will claim themselves as the Principal Investigators and will not decline any award given for their discovery. But the pseudo-PI status can be easily exposed when the publication is under fire. Then the paper PI wrapped around the discovery will evaporate/escape first and leaving behind the true research PI to suffer the burn. We have seen such ?corresponding? author from decline any investigator?s role in the famous stem cell scandal (see article LINK last year in Science. Now we see ?corresponding? author Nilsson has denied his investigation role in a then ?discovery? and now ?misconception?. Interestingly, Nilsson has not yet declined the 2007 Marcus Wallenberg Prize that was awarded for his (not Huang?s) discovery reported in the now retracted 2005 Science paper.

In my observations, many PI assigned corresponding author honor are not any true sense PI - the Principal Investigators. They are more like the Principal Investors (actually investing received money to his/her subordinate?s investigations) or the Principal Invitors (inviting others to join a collaborative research investigated by his/her research team). The major roles played by these PIs may be supported by their political capability or power to grab financial resources and/or organize research collaboration. They may also play a key role in securing a publication, especially a publication in some high impact factor journals. But their intellectual contribution to the invention-side or their research contribution to the investigation part of the study may be very limited.

So these PIs really have a reason to complain themselves being held up for any investigation error or misconduct for any publication that does not contain their discovery. But they deserve such blame because they choose to take the Corresponding author?s honor and thus should be held responsible. To be more frank, they should not deserve the glory for the discovery that it is not their investigation but should deserve the punishment for the publication of any lies that they signed off as the corresponding authors.

Because there are many meanings practically under the name of a PI, I suggest all journals take a procedure to identify who is the true PI - the Principal Investigators and clearly assigned this honor and also responsibility to the appropriate author(s) up front at the publication time. If there is a need to separate PI from the corresponding author, then distinction should also be made clearly at the publishing time, too. In this way, readers as well as prize selection committees will have a much easy time to identify the respective contribution to a scientific publication and find correct responsible authors for their true contribution to the discovery or fakery.

From Scientific Ethics 2: 53-54, 2007
LINK

If enough scholars get interested, can Dr. Liu's organization collect contributions, investigate thoroughly and bring a legal case to the PI?

To be specific, I am not interested in revolutions in peer-review system, but I am tired of having PIs mistreat their position and blame junior researchers.
----

Quote: From SciLaw's comment..

"So, what can be done?

1. The chief issue here is that the blame is shifted entirely on the junior foreign scientist. He should bring a libel case against Dr. Nilsson. On the basis of the following of his comments.
Quote: ￂﾓ"A guest researcher from China who had been invited to join our team manipulated the data to get false results," professor Ove Nilsson from the Faculty of Science and Agriculture at Umea told AFPￂﾅ.ￂﾔ, Nilsson added that ￂﾓthe Chinese researcher, who has now left the Swedish university, has refused to admit to the cheating and has maintained that the results were correctￂﾔ.

2. Chinese researcher community should bring a libel case against Dr. Nilsson. On the basis of the following of his comments, while in fact, he appears to be the one pushing the junior researcher.
Quote: "Chinese researchers are under a lot of pressure from their country and are expected to produce a maximum amount of results in order to get a job," he emphasized.

3. The libel case will help initiate an impartial judicial enquiry into the matter. If the Chinese scientist can not pay the litigation bills, an association like ￂﾓUnion of concerned scientistsￂﾔ should help him; alternatively, Chinese scientist should contact several lawyers in the judicial district to explore whether they can work for him with 100% of the monetary gains going to them.
"

It is amazing how much domino effect that a retraction can result in when it is done inappropriately.

The protest by an unfairly condemned junior Chinese researcher over the unbalanced retraction back fired at the Swedish principle investigator. The revelation of a very likely high-level misconduct then led to a community movement that shows its final blame at the very top of the scientific publishing. The outcries expressed in all comments in this and other increasing discussion forums (many thanks to the non-censorship offered by The Scientist in this discussion forum) may eventually generate enough pressure to lift open a once tightly sealed publishing can and thus to display to the public how many scientific worms are contained inside many of the secret peer-reviewing cans.

By following Shi V. Liuￂﾒs suggestion and reading the publications in the TFCP IM1 website (LINK I actually saw more scientific worms in other scientific cans.

A quick glance of the massive information in IM1 website (I am surprised that such rich information and powerful revelations have been largely ignored by the mainstream) led me to identify the following scientific ￂﾓwormsￂﾔ. To save space here I will just list their true name and main research misconduct or scientific crime here and readers interested can read the details in the linked publications. Since these revelations were made by Shi V. Liu and the publications were in his journals or personal website if you wish to call it in that way, I would encourage readers to exert cautions in making their own independent judgment. If anyone wishes to find out the exact truth, please contact the accused individuals for verification and ask them to speak out if they were wrongly accused).

1. Stewart, E. J. et. al. 2005. Ignoring pioneering publications on bacteria aging and even insisting on his right to commit a credit robbery. (see article LINK

2. Watve, M. et al. 2006. Intentionally ignoring pioneering publications on bacteria aging that he knew very well from his participation in TFCP Logical Biology and refused to make any correction. (see article LINK


3. Rando, T.A. et al. 2007. Intentionally ignoring pioneering publications on asymmetric cell division and regular DNA strand segregation even though he was informed of these publications in person by the pioneering author. (see article LINK

In the previous Comments, Truth-finder harshly identified some current ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals as the sinking Titanics. Truth4truth showed a good place for ethical publishing of truth. Now I am thinking hard whether I should stick with my chasing for the traditional ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals or switch to these so-called ￂﾓrevolutionaryￂﾔ journals.

The pros for sticking with the currently ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals include an instant respect from my peers if my submission is accepted for publication. I may also get a very rapid career promotion if my institute has adopted an award system that is based on the so-called ￂﾓimpact factorￂﾔ. However, chasing ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals may bring me some unpredictable outcomes and some of them may be irreversible disasters to my career. For example, what if I encounter a reviewer that could be even worse than Nilsson who not only steal my ideas but also rejected my submission only to give him/her the opportunity to first report his/her discovery (of my discovery)? If that happens then I know for sure that my career will suffer a huge setback because, in science, there is no second place. Worse than that, I may not even have an opportunity to seek a justice for myself because the reviewing process is secret and the journal will not open its reviewing process for investigation.

However, will the so-called ￂﾓrevolutionaryￂﾔ journals really bring me the needed payoff to satisfy my career advancement?

Reading the philosophy and principles of the TFCP statement (LINK I felt that many of them are very good but may be too noble to me. I care more about the practical benefit that TFCP journals may give me when I do decide to publish there. I found the following policies are actually more attractive to me:

"TFCP believes that all scientific discoveries also have their financial values besides their intellectual values. TFCP encourages authors to appreciate their scientific contribution to the society by demanding appropriate financial respect for their publication."

"When the publishing/selling of the information product(s) ￂﾖ scientific papers ￂﾖ earns a financial gain to TFCP, TFCP will distribute this financial gain to all parties contributing to the publishing of the paper. TFCP will issue to authors credits amounting to 20% of the charge collected by the publication from reader(s)."

"The proposed author share in the envisaged TFCP selling profits is also meant as a direct support for the research endeavours of such author. Since pioneering research is often having a hard time in breaking prevailing dogmas and it is even more difficult to get financial support through authority-safeguarded traditional funding mechanisms, this direct feedback of authorship-based earning is very critical for protecting some dedicated scientists from being financially competed out by some ill-pressured forces in modern scientific research."

After reading these policies my eyes really opened up. I know my discovery is valuable because I have devoted my time and energy into it. But I never expected that my discovery can earn me some payback in such a direct way. I thought that I have been treated fairly by some journals for not asking me to pay a huge amount of publication fee as some so-called new-generation open-access journals all do. But paying me directly for my (reader truly respected) discovery by the also hard-working publishers? I have never dreamed of such good things.

So I have made up of my mind: submitting my most revolutionary discovery (or most outrageous thoughts, depending on from which angle you see it) to the appropriate TFCP-brand journal. The worst thing that could happen to me is that I may not receive many citations as I would get from some well-established journals. However, I am really tired of the tedious procedures required for making a ￂﾓbeautifulￂﾔ publication in those ￂﾓhigh-endￂﾔ journals and truly worries about their unethical practice of allowing some parasites to rob otherￂﾒs (may be my) credit.

Jumping from a publishing titanic ship to a small boat requires wisdom and courage. The wisdom that I have learnt is that publication is a publication no matter where it is published (just look up the Russian mathematician for a role model because his non-peer-reviewed internet archive publication actually won him a title of Breakthrough of the Year in Science). The courage that I have is truth is truth even if it is published in some obscured places. While temporary impact of the publication may still count in some scientific circles, the durability of the original discovery is the only thing that will be counted in the history.

I would rather secure my place in scientific history by publishing my original discovery first than collect those temporarily useful but really worthless citations.

If my original publication in TFCP can also earn me some money, then I will laugh all the way to my bank.

Scientists nowadays have to fight in two fronts: finding truth in a research front and a securing credit in a publishing front. While a scientist can eliminate his or her worry of finding false by stand up against the publishing pressure when the truth is not yet found or the finding is not convincing, most scientists can really protect themselves from being robbed out of their due credit. Because, as revealed in the Comment entitled "Scientific Sharks" in this discussion forum (thank The Scientist for providing this unique open communication channel), there are many (may be too many) parasites living inside the secret peer-review "cans".

However, it appears to me that the landscape of scientific publishing has been changed, at least in some quite ways.

I just visited the TFCP (Truthfinding Cyberpress) website IM1 (International Multilingual No.1 website) at LINK I found the following interesting philosophy, principles, policies and protocols from the TFCP Statement (direct link is LINK

"TFCP believes that scientific publishing is primarily a communication mechanism rather than a validation process for scientific discovery. It should never be used as a censorship tool that suppresses expression of alternative opinions different from the mainstream views. Thus, TFCP has a different philosophy than most other publishers in determining the suitability of a submission for publishing."

Under that guiding philosophy, TFCP Instituted 10 principles as
1. Honesty, objectivity, and directness;
2. Logical soundness;
3. Originality in publishing and completeness in indexing;
4. Equality and transparency in pre-publishing review;
5. Post-publishing validation and openness in scientific scrutiny;
6. Directly rewarding scientists making useful discoveries;
7. Sharing financial gains among publishing participants;
8. Promoting ethical conduct and curtailing misconduct;
9. Punishment and refunding;
10. Grass root participation for revolutionizing scientific publishing.

I do not know whether these philosophy and principles are truly revolutionary or destructive for scientific publishing. But I think it does offer an ethical way to publish truth.

The same issue is being discussed in these forums also...

LINK

LINK

But I guess, The Scientist forum (here) is the only place where you don't have to register to provide your input.

It seems that Science actually rejected Shi V. Liuￂﾒs submission of a Letter (see revelation in the publication of this letter in Scientific Ethics 2: 41-43, 2007 at LINK Thus, it appears that Science/AAAS is indeed too big to be pushed by someone with a ￂﾓnobodyￂﾔ status. Or Science is really too weak at this point so that it even does not have a gut to fight back against someone holding a piece of truth.

If either of the above two cases is true then it just proves that a so-called ￂﾓtopￂﾔ scientific journal in the world has already lost its scientific character ￂﾖ seeking truth and being objective. By comparing with the emerging new-generation scientific journals such as those published by the Truthfinding Cyberpress which included Logical Biology, Scientific Ethics, Pioneer, Top Watch, and International Medicine, Science and other impact factor-wise ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals are really doing the confirmation reports on some discoveries already published there (please verify this claim by reading articles in these new journals by visiting LINK and protest this claim if necessary).

Thus, looking at this new horizon of scientific publishing world with a fair vision, people should realize that some of the ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals might have already sunk to the bottom of Communication Sea. Unfortunately, the captains of these traditional publishing Titanics still do not know that their ships are sinking. More ironically, they still enjoy a false safety feeling simply because they still see their tall status from the reflection of an inflated and even flawed impact factor mirror.

However, once that mirror is broken (which will happen as people have already realized the contribution of the citations collected by the retracted publications to the impact factors and voiced a demand for ISI/Thomson Scientific to correct its mistakes), then the harsh reality will be immediately presented to the naked eyes of the editors of these ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals. But it may be too late for them to salvage their ships because the penetration of faulty citation iceberg into their ships is so deep that any melting down of this iceberg will only leave a big hole.

Who will continue to stay on these dangerous ships when better ships for scientific communication are already waiting there for them to get on board?

I am confused!!

What then is the role of Principle Investigator? Last time I checked, it was to take credit for the work, and blame juniors if things went wrong.

They are not supposed to check the experimental details or analysis thereof, that is what juniors do. PIs push people and write the paper.

In this case, it appears that at least Dr. Nilsson has done the data analysis by himself; he may not have noticed red markings, but then the person to be blamed is who chose the red color. everybody knows blue color is more eye-catching than the red one!

ANd don't you blame Umea or Science, they have a thriving business to take care of.

The questions to be addressed are...

--Chinese student's claims that the interpretation was done by Dr. Nilsson,

--That he had clearly marked the outlier data, and that the paper was submitted in his absence,

--Dr. Nilsson's conduct during the prior lab meeting,

--Dr. Nilsson's prior knowledge about other papers submitted to Science,

--How they could have done these experiments in a reproducible manner in 10 days,

--How Science could have accepted this paper in 14 days, and published in a week after that,

--Why the investigations did not involve an interview of the Chinese student who was extensively smeared by Dr. Nilsson, etc.

First, congratulations to the Chinese scientist (Shi V Liu) for bringing this issue to our notice and doing the investigative work.

This appears to be an everyday case of systematic collusion in scientific research. The chief scientist has the last say. Nobody will listen to the foreign junior scientist -will not even interview him. The lab-mates who might have the real story, are still under chief scientistￂﾒs obligations, and may have their own negative role in the story, so they will side with him. Big institutions such as Science journal will only respond if the matter is brought to the fore by a member of congress or a nobel laureate.

So, what can be done?

1. The chief issue here is that the blame is shifted entirely on the junior foreign scientist. He should bring a libel case against Dr. Nilsson. On the basis of the following of his comments.
Quote: ￂﾓ"A guest researcher from China who had been invited to join our team manipulated the data to get false results," professor Ove Nilsson from the Faculty of Science and Agriculture at Umea told AFPￂﾅ.ￂﾔ, Nilsson added that ￂﾓthe Chinese researcher, who has now left the Swedish university, has refused to admit to the cheating and has maintained that the results were correctￂﾔ.

2. Chinese researcher community should bring a libel case against Dr. Nilsson. On the basis of the following of his comments, while in fact, he appears to be the one pushing the junior researcher.
Quote: "Chinese researchers are under a lot of pressure from their country and are expected to produce a maximum amount of results in order to get a job," he emphasized.

3. The libel case will help initiate an impartial judicial enquiry into the matter. If the Chinese scientist can not pay the litigation bills, an association like ￂﾓUnion of concerned scientistsￂﾔ should help him; alternatively, Chinese scientist should contact several lawyers in the judicial district to explore whether they can work for him with 100% of the monetary gains going to them.

4. Others, who have a stake in the integrity of peer-review system (i.e. Elsevier, Nature..), should press Science to clarify how the paper was processed. However, sending this thread to the Chief Editor of Science needs to be done.

5. Research community at Umea should take up the responsibility and press for a thorough investigation in to the case. Their working in an institute which does not know how to investigate such cases does not bode well with their own reputation, eventually.

---

I don't think you can expect Dr. Nilsson to (a) provide answers and (b) provide truthful answers.

The answer lies in the institutions doing what is ethical-- in a fair and expedited manner and making the results of their enquiry public.

And that is what Umea should do.

AAAS/Science? I dunno. May be it is too big and too upscale to waste its time on questions raised by some obscure Chinese scientist. Let us face it, you have to be somebody of influence to influence them. Things such as truth and ethics are useful for editorials --not editorial policies.

The following 10 questions were sent to Ove Nilsson on April 22, 2007. However, so far I have received no answer. Nilsson, where is your courage in seeking truth and telling truth?

Dear Dr. Nilsson:

From a very popular Chinese website New Threads (LINK I first leant the so-called ￂﾓfalsificationￂﾔ misconduct by Tao Huang who was a member of your research team. Then I read the Retraction you and your colleagues published in Science (316:367, 2007). Your Retraction as well as other reports appeared in the Internet gave people a strong impression that Tao Huang alone is responsible for all the ￂﾓmisconductￂﾔ. However, in a statement posted by Tao Huang on New Threads (April 20, 2007), he claimed that his action was fully aware and agreed by you and other co-authors.

Thus, as a reader of Science I wish to find the truth of this incidence. As the Editor-in-Chief of Scientific Ethics I have a responsibility to inform others the truth of this case. I wish that you could answer the following 10 questions.

1. Was Tao Huangￂﾒs research part of your grant-supported research project?
2. What were the scientific grounds for formulating your grant proposal and what were the expected results?
3. If Tao Huangￂﾒs experimental findings matched your expectations (so that a publication can be made) why others cannot (fully) repeat them?
4. If Tao Huangￂﾒs experimental findings did not match your expectations why would you trust his findings so easily and published a paper so quickly?
5. Tao Huang claimed that ￂﾓNilsson interrupted our original plan and asked us to rapidly do these experiments in order to catch up with two papers on FD gene that would be soon publishedￂﾔ. Does this statement reflect the truth?
6. If Tao Huangￂﾒs above statement is true, how did you learn that the other two papers on FD gene would be soon published?
7. If you knew that the other two papers on FD gene would be soon published (or even read and reviewed those two papers), why would you ask Huang et al. to do those experiments in a hurry and publish your paper first?
8. In the paper that you wrote did you cite those two soon to be published papers on FD gene?
9. Tao Huang claimed that ￂﾓall original data were handled to other authors for making the final tables and figures and the paper was submitted to Science before he came back from a vacationￂﾔ. Did you allowed all co-authors to read the final version and get their agreements before your submission? If not, did you commit a cheating? As a corresponding author, what kind responsibility you should take and what punishment you should suffer?
10. You stated in your Retraction that ￂﾓWe deeply regret any scientific misconceptions that have resulted from the publication of these dataￂﾔ. Do the ￂﾓmisconceptionsￂﾔ only refer to Tao Huangￂﾒs data manipulation but not relate with your ￂﾓmisconductsￂﾔ of careless attitude towards scientific research, your lack of concrete direction and monitoring of the research, and your behavior of claiming most if not all credit for you self when a publication is in glory but not taking any major responsibility when a publication is in trouble?

I am sorry for any hard feeling that the above questions may cause but I feel that it is a responsibility for me to ask them in a very direct way. Of course, the questions may be groundless and you are entitled to deny them (with facts). But I should let you know that your reply to my above questions is not a personal communication but a public statement. For that reason, I will also ask you to clearly state that all of your response will be publishable by Scientific Ethics.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Let us make this an example case for scientific sharks.

Have you ever being told to restrain yourself from revealing too much information to someone in your scientific presentation or communication because that person is a known scientific shark? I had been given such advice before when I started my scientific career some twenty years ago and was given this advice again right after I moved into a new research field.
However, many times you have no control or protection against the fouls committed by the scientific sharks.
For example, in order to get your research findings published and also recognized, you have to seek publication in some peer-reviewed journals. However, have you ever had such an experience that your paper was rejected for some unreasonable reasons but soon afterwards similar or even the same findings were published by someone else? Sometimes you might just blame yourself for being too late in your submission or for having a bad luck that your work was reviewed by some really unknowledgeable ￂﾓexpertsￂﾔ. However, sometimes your submission was actually made earlier and the points being criticized or rejected by the reviewers or editors were actually repeated in the later submitted but nevertheless published paper in the very same journal. Consequently, what can you be blamed for? For nothing! Thus, who else should be blamed for? I believe that it is the largely corrupted scientific publishing system that should be blamed for, at least for one thing: secret peer review has provided an incubator for scientific sharks to thrive and outpace fellow scientists by employing means that could certainly be qualified as criminal.
Nilsson has accused his postdoc for all the faults in his Science publication (316:367, 2007). Yet, he had initially grabbed all the credit for the so-called ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ and will even go on to collect a major prize from His Majesty the King of Sweden in Stockholm in the autumn (LINK despite the fact that his ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ has recently been retracted. Moreover, despite the fact that, several months ago, he was directly asked some tough questions related to how he achieved the high-profile publication of his ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ in Science (309: 1694-1696, 2005), he still has not answered a single question. However, does he really believe that his shark behavior will escape ethical condemnation and, ideally, justice punishment?
I have pointed out the time sequence of the submission and publication of Nilssonￂﾒs and other two groupsￂﾒ papers in Science (see Comment 2 before). Now I wish to disclose some more detailed insiderￂﾒs knowledge of the Nilssonￂﾒs discovery process.
According to a response that Tao Huang, the accused postdoc, gave to a Swedish journalist and also to me, the whole time sequence of Nilssonￂﾒs ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ was as follows:

Ove Nilsson required us to do that experiment as soon as possible at group meeting in the middle of May 2005 because he got news that another two papers about florigen story would be published soon. Then we prepared that experiment after meeting. Actually we started the experiments at 15 June because we had to wait for three weeks for Arabidopsis to grow under short-day condition. We collected data from 25 June to 5 July. Then I have left for Narvik in Norway for holiday according my original plan at 10 July. All data,with excluded data points clearly marked, were transferred to Sven, the third author. Sven has asked me about those excluded data points and we have discussed it briefly without disagreement. All the original data was kept by Sven from that time, I also kept one copy. I came back to Umea from my holiday at 18 of July. Ove Nilsson had written that paper which was immediately submitted to Science at 21 July.

Nilssonￂﾒs (not Huangￂﾒs) paper (because Nilsson wrote the paper and was the only corresponding author of the paper) was submitted on July 21, 2005 and was published online on August 11, 2005. This speed of light-fast publication may be NORMAL for Science but is in fact very rare in traditional scientific publishing. More amazingly, the speed of making this ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ may also be a world-record: it took only about two months from the ￂﾓinceptionￂﾔ of ideas to the finishing of the manuscript. Thanks to the detailed behind-the-scenes knowledge, Nilssonￂﾒs experiments were so ￂﾓwellￂﾔ designed that only about 10 days were needed to collect ￂﾓallￂﾔ the necessary data to make a ￂﾓrightￂﾔ point that was sufficient for a ￂﾓhigh-profileￂﾔ publication in a world ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journal.
However, after reading the above revelations and comments, can you now discern the clear picture of a scientific shark? Fortunately, this time Science has not misbehaved too much and still published the other two earlier submissions in its regular later publishing schedule. Even so, Science still cannot relinquish its responsibility of a clear editorial misconduct by allowing Nilsson to lie about his true knowledge on the other two papers with a so-called ￂﾓNote added in proofￂﾔ.
Nilsson, do not even dream that you can escape punishment from your shark behaviors. You are now at least under some close surveillance!
Science, do not expect that you are still immune from any ethical condemnation for whatever of your misconducts, you are now also under the close watch by the scientific community.

(Excerpt from Scientific Ethics 2: 51-52, 2007; LINK

A new case of data-manipulation ￂﾓmisconductￂﾔ is now in full-blown public display. First reported in some Swedish media and then picked up by some Chinese websites the incidence has led a Retraction in Science (316:367, 2007). The reports in Swedish media all stated that the data-manipulation was done by a ￂﾓChinese professorￂﾔ [Note: the person referred was not a professor but just a junior postdoctoral researcher at the time he was doing the study in Sweden]. Nilsson, the principle investigator of the study and the corresponding author of the retracted paper, even accused his Chinese trainee with an intentional data-manipulation ￂﾓto get the patterns he wantedￂﾔ (quoting a News article published on April 18, 2007 in Physorg.com).
However, Tao Huang (the alleged data-manipulator) has published a statement on April 20, 2007 in XYS (LINK defending his action of data treatment. He also pointed out that, contrary to what has been reported that he alone contributed to the ￂﾓfalsificationￂﾔ of the published data, ￂﾓall original data were handled to other authors for making the final tables and figures and the paper [which was written by Nilsson] was submitted to Science before he came back from a vacationￂﾔ [translated from Chinese].
To learn whoￂﾒs telling the truth and what the real situations were I, as the editor-in-chief of Scientific Ethics (LINK wrote Nilsson a letter (delivered in email) and asked him 10 questions [These questions were also published in Chinese on April 22, 2007 in XYS]. So far, I have not received any response from Nilsson. Meanwhile Huang (who was not contacted by me due to the difficulty in finding his contact information) has communicated with me after reading the published questions, indicating his firm standing by his statement.
Thus, while the truth on this data-manipulation ￂﾓmisconductￂﾔ is still out, it is premature to reach any guilty sentence. But the Retraction published by Science gives people a very strong impression that Tao Huang is guilty of ￂﾓfalsificationￂﾔ and he alone should be blamed. That retraction also led people to believe that Nilsson and other co-authors are not only the victims but also the heroes for finding and revealing Huangￂﾒs scientific mistake or ethical ￂﾓmisconductￂﾔ.
However, this concentration of all the blames to Huang alone when the publication is in trouble contrasts sharply with the concentration of all the credits to Nilsson when the publication was in glory. Thus, not only the validity of a scientific publication is now in question but also the fairness of scientific accreditation comes under scrutiny.
I have read some old News articles describing the ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ then. I am disappointed but not surprised to find that, even though Huang was the first author of the paper, his name was nowhere to be found in those articles. Instead these articles all described the 2005 Science publication as Nilssonￂﾒs discovery. As a matter of fact, Nilsson alone was chosen for receiving the 2007 Marcus Wallenberg Prize which will be presented by His Majesty The King of Sweden in Stockholm in the autumn. The citation for this award (LINK emphasized heavily his (but not Huangￂﾒs) 2005 Science publication because it ￂﾓwas ranked as the third most important globally in the year 2005ￂﾔ (see ￂﾓBreakthrough of the Year: The Runners-upￂﾔ in Science 310: 1880-1885, 2005).
So my question is: if the ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ was and is still believed to be a ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ by Nilsson, then why only Huang should be blamed for the non-existence of the ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ or the ￂﾓfakeryￂﾔ. Nilsson blamed Huang for ￂﾓget the patterns he wantedￂﾔ. But if those patterns were not Nilssonￂﾒs expectations, would he so easily truth Huangￂﾒs experiments and even so eagerly write some rushed experimental results into a key paper for high-impact publication?
In Huangￂﾒs published statement he dropped a bomb shell that ￂﾓNilsson interrupted our original plan and asked us to rapidly do these experiments in order to catch up with two papers on FD gene that would be soon publishedￂﾔ [Translated from Chinese]. If that is true which I strongly believe so then Nilsson owes more answers than just a simple retraction.
The 10 questions that I asked Nilsson include when and how he learnt that the other two papers on FD gene would be soon published and why he asked Huang et al. to do those experiments in a hurry and publish his paper first? Because I have not received a reply from Nilsson I have to rely on my own detective work to get some likely answers for these questions.
I found that those two papers were actually published later than the then Nilssonￂﾒs but now Huangￂﾒs paper. The submission dates for Abe et al.ￂﾒs paper (Science 309: 1052-1056, 2005), and Wigge et al.ￂﾒs paper (Science 309: 1056-1059, 2005) were respectively June 10 and May 3 of 2005, both were much earlier than the submission date (July 21 of 2005) of the Nilsson/Huang paper (Science 309: 1694-1696, 2005). But the dates accepted for publication for these three papers were respectively July 12, July 7, and August 3 of 2005. However, while the other two papers were only published regularly in print on August 12, 2005, the Nilsson/Huang paper was published first online on August 11 and then in print on September 9, 2005. So, despite the (very likely) fact that Nilsson only started to (ask Huang et al.) do the experiments after he had learnt the other two soon-to-be published papers [this speculation was confirmed by Huang now], the publication record of Science actually shows that Nilsson was at least one day ahead of others in publishing his (not Huangￂﾒs) discovery. This one day difference may appear very small but can be very significant in future prize collection. If I can misquote Neil Armstrong I can say ￂﾓone small difference in publishing time, one giant advantage for prize collectionￂﾔ because, everyone knows, ￂﾓthere is no second place in scienceￂﾔ.
It is appalling to see how Nilsson treated the other two earlier papers that he was aware in his much later submitted paper. Instead of citing and also objectively placing those two earlier studies in suitable positions of scientific history Nilsson mentioned them only in the ￂﾓNote added in proofￂﾔ, as if he only became aware of those studies after he submitted the paper. Why would Nilsson be so dishonest in communicating scientific knowledge and history? Is this kind of fact distortion or credit robbery more harmful and shameful than those data-manipulation types of ￂﾓmisconceptionￂﾔ?
Now I wish to put Nilsson aside and focus on the role of Science in allowing some cryptic high-level misconduct taking place in a ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journal and bringing Nilssonￂﾒs much later ￂﾓdiscoveryￂﾔ into a high-profile position. The editors of Science might well know whether Nilsson was aware of the other two earlier studies and thus should stop him from mistreating them in his much later submitted paper. The creation of a ￂﾓNote added in poofￂﾔ might even a well designed solution to satisfactorily cover up an otherwise clear editorial misconduct.
It is amazing to see how fast that Science processed the Nilsson paper. It took only 13 days to accept and 21 days to publish online the Nilsson paper. Is this lightening fast speed of publishing an amazement of the working efficiency of Science or a smoking gun of the work abnormity in Science? Why should Science give Nilsson a much favored treatment by publishing his study even earlier than the other two already accepted submissions? Did some one run an inside track or even take a short-cut to reach the finishing line earlier?
It is amazing how resilient that Science is in keeping its error-prone publishing process intact despite many demands on reforming it. Since Hwangￂﾒs stem cell publishing scandal in Science retraction has been a prominent feature of Science. As a matter of fact, high retraction rate is a common hallmark for all impact-factor-wise ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals (Sci. Ethics 1: 91-93, 2006). Ironically the retracted papers actually often earned these ￂﾓtopￂﾔ journals more citations than other ordinary papers because they often claimed some unbelievable and thus very interesting findings. More amazingly, these retracted papers often continue to earn and earn more citations for these journals after their retractions (Sci. Ethics 1: 72-73, 2006).
Science has relinquished its responsibility for publishing Hwangￂﾒs faked stem cell discovery by blaming only Hwang and his research team for the scandal (Sci. Ethics 1: 3-7 and 89-90, 2006). Should we allow Science trash Huang and then continue its non-scientific and retraction-prone publishing business (Sci. Ethics 1: 49-52, 2006)?
Nilsson and Science: you both owe public many answers!

The whole impression from investigation conducted in Sweden is that it is based more on opinions of some people rather than on facts. In the story described in the article one can hardly believe that very strong accusations were put forward against Chinese scientist without questioning him personally and, as it looks, without careful examination of laboratory journals and other documents. I believe it is simply impossible to make so strong conclusions without questioning of accused person. His guilt was decided only on trust to his professor and on e-mail where he admitted some possible error but not the fraud itself. Practice of fraud investigations in Sweden shows that the decisions were most often taken in favor of more senior scientists against more junior ones largely because of by definition higher trust to professors against their opponents. This allows me to rise a general question of investigations for scientific fraud: is it performed by right people and using right procedures?
Police officers investigating non-scientific crimes are people specially trained to collect evidence , to perform interrogations, to recognize cheating of various kinds. Imagine if any of professors who conducted scientific fraud investigations were called to investigate some professional criminal? No doubts, that professional criminal who is master of making false documents, false alibi and experienced in cheating of various kinds would easily cheat around unprepared scientist. Science is based in many ways on trust, scientists are often not prepared to large scale cheating, they are often people little bit from ￂﾓother worldￂﾔ and not familiar with all bad sides of human nature.
Scientific fraud is not less crime than others and can be rather damaging financially when significant public money are spent on false ￂﾓdiscoveriesￂﾔ. But the specific of this crime is that it can be understood by only by relatively narrow range of specialists (most often of professor level) who work in specific research field but they are NOT in any way prepared for criminal investigations. They are randomly appointed in Sweden by Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsradet, VR) for that kind of investigations and chosen from very narrow range of available specialists. Professors are rather busy people with very tight timetables and many other duties as continuing research, teaching, supervising PhDￂﾒs, making conference presentations etc. They are interested to close investigation as soon as possible in order to return back to their adorable science. It is rather unpleasant and time consuming job to investigate fraud after all. These professors donￂﾒt get any training or lessons how to deal with interrogations, how to collect evidence and how to check possible cheating. They are directed only by very general ethical guidelines and are allowed to conduct investigation in any way they prefer, their knowledge about criminals is limited in best case to reading detective stories. Moreover, those professors are unavoidably connected somehow to those who are under investigation, they might have wrote before reviews for projects of accused scientist, they may be seated in the same committees or panels since the Swedish scientific community is not very large (whole Sweden has population of Paris). As a result, the investigation is usually limited to few interviews with people involved, often without verification of scientific records, looking into laboratory journals etc. Professors who investigate fraud naturally have higher trust to other professors with reputations rather than to students, guest scientists or postdocs. Final documents of investigation are not published by Swedish Research Council and for most of the people not the issue of accusations, nor the evidence, nor the excuses presented by both sides become known. Until something is leaked in mass media and what is leaked very often far from reality or presented in disproportional way. And no chance to appeal decisions of Swedish Research Council (VR) decisions is given. Independently on quality of investigation which depends on how well the appointed expert was educated in criminal investigations (see above about detective books) -the word of expert is last and has absolute power over careers of people. Ethics comitty of VR communicates only with rektors of Universities. The Chinese guy has no chance to contact them directly and to present his arguments for this investigation if experts have not contacted him, which is not fair obviously. I donￂﾒt know any example when international, truly independent expert, was called for fraud investigation in Sweden. It is also impossible to take issues on international level since international organisations which could investigate important cases of scientific fraud simply do not exist. I think it is time for EU to organize some special investigation board for high profile fraud cases.