Peer reviewed study published in Science Journal turns out to be fraud.

[Regina]

Anyone who is seriously still a young-Earth creationist in the 21st Century deserves all the shade they get.

I mean did you even attend school? You've got biology, physics, geography and archeaology all proving with strong evidence that the Earth is far older than 6000 years. it's in your face now. I despair, there's just no hope for some people.

[Esquilax]

There has already been more fraud in the 'science of evolution', than all other sciences put together.

Oh wow, you're still saying that after I cleared all that up for you in the last thread we had this discussion in? You must be a real dishonest tool then, eh?

[Cyberman]

It's just as dishonest to take one instance of apparent fraud in one paper on one subject and use it to smear another entire discipline. By that token, we could take someone like Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite and say he represents all priests. Would that be fair, YG?

[robvalue]

So would it be better if science declared itself to never be wrong and refused to address any mistakes or fraudulent findings? Then it really would be another religion.

[The Inquisition]

I suspect that if there was a peer reviewed study that supports a world-wide flood or men being created from dust that the OP would have no problem crowing about how wondrous science is.

[Nope]

Part of the problem, IMO, is the idea of "believing in" evolution rather than "accepting" evolution. To opponents of the theory (creationists), "I believe in evolution" makes it equal to "I believe in Yahweh".

Some religious people imagine science to work like religion. They believe their faith is never wrong so they assume that scientist view their work with the same unquestioning acceptance. There is a strong anti intellectualism among right wing Christians that is scary.

[LostLocke]

There has already been more fraud in the 'science of evolution', than all other sciences put together.

Oh, no no no no no.... there is far more fraud in a ~6000 year old earth than there is in any other 'science'.
Considering the fact that not one branch of science points to the earth being ~6000 years old.

[Ben Davis]

It is pure chance that a separate group tried to replicate the results. The results and the conclusion taken from those results should have been exposed during peer-review. Peer reviews are meant to anaylse the veracity of the source data. Once a paper has passed peer-review, it is widely acknowledged to be reliable, with no further investigation necessary.

Fred: No, no, no, no, I'm not a student. But I am a major science enthusiast. I've been trying to get Honey to develop a formula that could turn me into a fire-breathing lizard at will. But she says that's "not science".

Honey: I-It's really not.

Fred: Yeah, and I guess the shrink ray I asked Wasabi for isn't "science" either, is it?

Wasabi: Nope.

Fred: Well then, what about... invisible sandwich? Imagine eating a sandwich, but everybody just thinks you're crazy.

Wasabi: Just stop.

[Jenny A]

Peer review is a process in which scholars in the same field review a manuscript before publication in a a peer reviewed journal.  The manuscript is reviewed to see that the methodology and procedures described in the manuscript are sound.  It is not generally speaking a fact checking activity.   Generally speaking it assumes the person submitting the manuscript is honest.  What's being reviewed is the quality of his methods and procedures and the validity of his conclusions based up those methods and procedures.

Independent replication does not generally occur until after a study has be peer reviewed and published.  It's hard to attempt to replicate what you don't know about.   It is at this point other scientists will attempt to replicate the study using the same and/or different methods.   The more controversial or unlikely a finding, the more likely it is that others will attempt to replicate it. But generally speaking the purpose of independent replication is not to uncover actual fraud, but rather to determine if honestly reached conclusions hold up when examined more closely.  {edit: or using a larger sample size} Often they don't though the mistakes are in the vast majority of cases honest ones rather than fraud.  For that reason a single study is rarely considered conclusive in the sciences.  (Though the popular press  both on the left and right does like to treat single studies as if they were should the story be good enough.)


Though the system is not designed to detect fraud, that a fraud will eventually be discovered is almost inevitable given the way the process works as fraudulent results simply are not replicable.

In this particular case the methods described in the paper were sound, and the paper was published. The paper got a lot of press because it was good news for a number of interests.  But it failed the test of independent replication so badly that fraud was suspected and indeed found to be the case.  There is nothing "chance" about it.  

So what did we learn?  We learned a scientist falsified data and that he was found out.  Notice that he was found out not by the press but by other scientists. 

[robvalue]

He wasn't found out by religion or God either