Ibn Al-Haytham
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Posts posted by Ibn Al-Haytham
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19 hours ago, rheya19 said:
I was going to suggest the same thing. At the point when someone is comparing fudging a CV to rape and victim-blaming, yes. Agreed. 100%.
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14 minutes ago, Sigaba said:
Well, thank you for slumming and enlightening us.
Sure.
Anytime.
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hats
"As to your post on the previous page, obviously this man has standing to request that his students not plagiarize. If I got a speeding ticket ten years ago and now I'm teaching my teenage daughter to drive, do I have the "moral basis" to tell her that she should obey traffic laws, too? "
A parent-child analogy is problematic. Some occupations require different level of ethics. Particularly those occupations where a major part of the responsibility is the searching of the truth and the reporting of facts (police detective, judge, scientist, journalist...).
A better analogy would be "If someone was found to be involved in multiple incidences of fraud, for close to two decades, will you accept him acting as a judge?"
I don't know what the proper punishment should be. I do know that cover-up and lack of any disciplinary action aren't acceptable.
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43 minutes ago, Psygeek said:
Nobody ever looked more smart from ad hominem attacks such as questioning peoples maturity.
I apologies for that. But, yes, the majority of Retraction Watch readers are mid to late academic career stage, rather then mostly students, as it is here. It is most unlikely that you wouldn't experience such crup in your department by the time you would become a Professor.
I do find you guys as valuable audience- those that are most vulnerable to misconducts done by more senior scientists, as well as those who are most likely to make a significant change. And a change is required .
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2 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:
"You've instead assumed the role of Defender of Academia. No one appointed you, and it seems to me that the people you claim to be fighting for aren't happy with what you're doing. Think about that. "
I suspect that you do not understand your responsibilities as a scientist. Turning a blind eye, even to the slightest evident dishonesty or 'inaccuracies', is not one of those responsibilities.
Something very recent and most related:
http://retractionwatch.com/2017/11/14/phantom-reference-made-article-got-almost-400-citations/
Also read the comments for this article, written by likely more mature academics.
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14 hours ago, Sigaba said:
This is an interesting story. But you are not focused—you don’t have to believe me. You should simply find a copy of either one of these presumably two journal papers or any one of these presumably four conference proceedings:
Non-existent ‘Peer-Reviewed Articles’ (these two are listed in the CV side to some actual journal papers):
· Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.
· Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.
Non-existent ‘Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings’ (these four are listed in the CV side to some actual conference proceedings papers (of the Cognitive Science Society)):
· Davidenko, N., Weiner, K., Grill-Spector, K. (2013). Broadly tuned face and hand representations in human ventral temporal cortex. Talk presented at 19th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, Seattle, WA.
· Davidenko, N., Remus, D., Grill-Spector, K. (2010). Characterizing face representations in the ventral stream: effects of physical variability and distance from the average face. Talk presented at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
· Davidenko, N., Remus, D., Grill-Spector, K. (2008). Responses in face-selective cortex increase with increased face variability but decrease with increased distance from the mean face. Talk presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
· Davidenko, N., Remus, D., Ramscar, M., Grill-Spector, K. (2008). Stronger face-selective responses to typical versus distinctive faces when stimulus variability is controlled. Talk presented at the 8th annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society in Naples, FL, May 2008.
All the above are not listed as conference abstract, which are listed separately in that CV.
After finding either one of the above papers (full length manuscript, please), you can move to your next challenge of figuring what motivates me. If you really care, please do proper fact checking. Yesterday I gave you a unique access code for the manuscript, and I know that your engagement was minimal (e.g., you didn’t press any of the links provided, directing to relevant materials).
Regarding your argument: “If you really cared about this issue as much as you'd like others to believe, you'd have filed a lawsuit against the professor, his department, his school, and the parent system. You'd have gone to the press. You'd have gone to all of the schools he's attended. You'd have identified former classmates and interviewed them for evidence of similar behavior. “
Darling, the world does not work this way. On what basis can I file a lawsuit? There was no harm done directly to me by Davidenko or by his department. I simply looked at someone CV, looked for some of his publications, could not find some of those. After further inquiry, we (yes, we) realized that there is an ongoing issue with several details in his CV. This doesn’t make me/us eligible for filing a lawsuit. I don't know if anyone can file a lawsuit here (maybe funding agencies). I only know that such behavior by a University Professor should not be tolerated. This is how much I care about the scientific community, and this is how much I'm willing to do. Going to the press? Maybe we already did. Do you think that they have the resources publishing any wrongdoing? They are often more likely to take notice after there is already a buzz. Running my own in-depth investigation? We (yes, we) did what we could, and wrote a summary.
Regarding your counter accusations directed at me—do you realize that you are using the kind of attitude often used by someone who’s defending a rapist by arguing that a woman complaining must be a prostitute? How dare you?
And if you think that Universities Administration can be relied upon when it comes to policing themselves, you are welcomed to be humbled by these two known stories of Melissa Theis or Robert Trivers (more about the aftermath here, and here).
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8 minutes ago, TakeruK said:
I think you misunderstand what I said. A citation doesn't have to link to a paper. A citation is just information to tell the reader where to find a source of information. You can write citations to websites or anything, not just papers. So if a reader follows the citation that Davidenko gave for the 1997 work, they would find exactly what I linked to (after realising that it should be Feb 1997 not Jun 1997).
The problem is not that the citation is false, the problem is that the citation is presented in a way that is misleading because it appears in a list with other more conventional full length papers, making a reasonable reader expect that this too is another full length paper. But this is a different offense than making up a citation.
I understand very well.
The bottom line is that Davidenko list a publication from 1997 as a journal paper. But his first true journal paper is from 1998 (which he lists separately).
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2 hours ago, Sigaba said:
Since the OP clearly has it all figured out, the question remains.
Will the OP take his concerns and evidence to the responsible institutions, publishers, and professional associations and shares the subsequent experiences here or will the OP continue to strut around like Galileo did after he discovered Las Vegas?
TL/DR: Don't talk (and talk and talk) the talk if you're not going to walk the walk.
Good point. We already tried this. Found it to be ineffective.
I sent you a private note with some information.
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"Despite your claim, the Davidenko et al. (1997) citation is real (other than a typo on the date which should be February 1997 not June 1997). "
Once again, the link you provided is for a conference abstract, not a journal paper ...And what about the 1995 paper?
Interestingly, the same 'misplacement' also shows in his biosketch, which is a totally different version of his CV.
This one is from an NIH grant proposal, submitted to NIH at 2008 (this info is also provided in the article). See page 2, under RESEARCH PAPERS. Note the dissociation between these research papers and conference abstracts:
https://sciencewatchblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/davidenko_bio_blnd.pdf
Also note that in the biosketch, the conference proceedings ...and only the the TRUE conference proceedings (short papers), are listed together with the journal papers (which is, acceptable, if specified).
"I agree with all of these premises, but only if the cheating is something that is 1) proven and 2) significant enough. Fabricating data, physical or emotional abuse, etc. are good reasons to raise these concerns. But in this case, based on unknown factors, the offense can be as minor as typo/absent-mindedness to as severe as intentional bending of the truth to pad one's CV. Even on the most extreme end, this is not a serious enough problem that would cause me to doubt someone's ability as an academic who can act with integrity. And in this case, there is not enough evidence to put this on the extreme end. "
Minor/harmless offenses? ... for a University Professor?
Imagine Davidenko as a department chair in 10 years from now (this may actually happen). It was found that a graduate student in his department plagiarized a research work conducted by others. Will Davidenko have a moral basis to discipline this student?
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“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” – George OrwellI wonder how the attitude expressed by some of the people here is related to this:...by the way, the above is how a true full length paper should look like.No one yet provided with copies of these two 'papers':Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.
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10 hours ago, TakeruK said:
TakeruK
Once again, thank you for taking the time thinking about this issue and writing a detailed response.
However, there are few points with which I disagree with you:
1) The classification of kinds of publications - this is straightforward - a conference abstract is not a journal paper, and the first should not be presented as if it is the second. Many scientific societies have a major conference and a flagship journal. Many times those societies archive abstracts from their major conference in their flagship journal website. But this does not make any of these abstracts a journal paper. For example, the Cognitive Science Society have a journal called Cognitive Science. They also have an annual meeting to which you can send conference proceedings (6 pages long papers) or alternatively only an abstract. The acceptance rate for the Cognitive Science society journal is about 1:6-1:7. The acceptance rate of a conference proceedings is about 1:3 or 1:4 (depending on the year). The acceptance rate of abstracts is higher than 9:10 (they basically just filter out abstracts that have nothing to do with the conference topic or are poorly writen).
In his CV Davidenko has the following categories: (i) Peer-Reviewed Articles; (ii) Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings ; (iii) Conference Abstracts
However, he presented one Conference Abstracts under Peer-Reviewed Articles (the 1997 'paper', on which he presumably was a first author), and half dozen Conference Abstracts under Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings. It seems that he 'misplaces' conference abstract under the two other categories the way he likes.
This is on top of the fabrication of the 1995 journal paper, where he placed his name instead of someone else.
These issues have been taken place in multiple copies of his CV, for almost two decades.
2) Regarding the damage to the community - without being too dramatic, this cannot be easily quantified as it can be quite excessive. To quote from the article:
‘Biffing-up’ a CV is not a victimless act. Being accepted to a prestigious University, in part based on false information, involves stealing a spot from someone more worthy. Inflating credentials in federal grant applications may be considered as an act of fraud and it involves the abuse of tax payer money. Given the limited resources, it also means that funding was prevented from others, more capable scientists. Getting a faculty position while having an academic career that is based on lies comes on the expense of more worthy candidates who applied for that position. Finlay, a chronically dishonest individual can be toxic in any organization, moreover in the academia— The cover up or tolerance of a misconduct by some key University personnel is likely to create substantial tension and even conflicts within the institute, as many of the other institute affiliates are likely to be uncomfortable with such behavior being tolerated. In an organization that value or even only protect dishonest individuals, honest people suffer most.
Beyond these, what is the lesson to be learned by students? ...that if you were successful in getting away with cheating long enough, you can keep your position as a Professor, and mentor and teach University students while being payed by tax payer money? Ho can you even start counting on such a person to do his job as a Professor?
How do you quantify the corrosive impact of keeping such a person in a position of a Professor? Keeping him means the blurring of the boundary between right and wrong.
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18 hours ago, hats said:
As a graduate student advised by this person?
1) Wow this is not my business.
2) I do not have anywhere near the level of institutional power, influence, or support, to do anything about this.
3) Gee I will wait with my head down for my professor's colleagues to sort this out. When I say "with my head down," I especially mean that I will not gossip.
4) I trust they will sort this out fairly, even if this means severe consequences for my advisor, like firing them.
5) This seems like a good time to strengthen my relationships with other faculty members in my department, to see what I can do about making a Plan B for if they do fire the guy.
You will do great as a politician.
More seriously. Clearly, as a graduate student you are most vulnerable, and you should hope someone higher-up will do the job.
Too often they will not. What then?
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28 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:
...
We say MAYBE because we don't actually know what happened. You don't either, nor does the author of the blog post, but you seem determined to interpret everything only one way, whichever is the most nefarious and ill-intentioned one. But most of us can easily imagine making an error or two as an undergrad or even a grad student and ending up with something inaccurate or even plain wrong on our CVs. And since the way we update our CVs is by adding new stuff, not re-vetting old stuff, it's not at all shocking that something that was on a CV in the 90s would be carried over to later ones. It's also not a stretch to see how it'd end up on an NIH CV, which is presumably simply constructed based on the person's professional CV (that's how I'd do it..). So yeah, we're not saying that there were no errors made, but we are willing to calibrate our outrage-meter to the size of the error and its timing. Undergrads do all kinds of stupid things. If all someone with a vendetta can find is a couple of questionable decisions from two decades ago, I'd feel pretty encouraged that there's basically nothing to see here.
Including in your CV a manuscript that doesn't exist, and/or to which you didn't contribute (after placing your name instead of someone else name) is a very interesting error to make, to begin with. Specifically when you only have a handful of publications, and given that the publication list is one of the most (if not the most) important aspect of an academic CV.
I don't know. Maybe there are some cultural issues here. this sort of CV 'mistakes' may become the norm in some cultures : https://www.topuniversities.com/blog/lying-your-cv-facts
...It is after all the post-truth era.
It is way too comfortable to include false details in a CV for years, that just turned to boost your qualifications, and when being discovered claiming it was an 'honest typo'.
I will be willing to accept the omission of couple of publications as an error. But making up publications with your name on them?? How can this be an honest error?
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35 minutes ago, Psygeek said:
article B; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7535005 ---> if you go to pubmed and search for the jalife dude; this shows up under 235. Seems he was just taken of the author list - but was maybe promised. Maybe he was supposed to help with the manuscript but turned out to be too busy in grad school in the end. Who knows. Maybe he's bene using the same old resume over an dover and forgot to take it off (Unintentionally)
Am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for A. Probably a grad student mistake. There is an actual document sorta there.
Are you kidding?
You used the word "MAYBE" three time, but you didn't provide a copy of those two papers with N Davidenko as an author.
If someone has been so 'negligent' in writing his CV with such errors ( to include in his NIH bio-sketch, and likely in his grad school applications, postdoc applications, , grant applications, applications for faculty positions...) , consistently for almost two decades, multiple versions, can this person be trusted when he reports the findings from a research study?
These non-existent papers are from 1995 and 1997. The versions of the CV that can be found online are from 2007 onward. Don't you think that by 2007 he should have know if he is an author on a paper or not? Since when one includes a paper in his CV as a PUBLISHED PAPER (with page numbers and everything) before even knowing if he is going to be included as a contributor???
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7 hours ago, TakeruK said:
Again, this is careless behaviour and disappointing to see in another academic. But at this time, the person in question was a undergraduate student and I know I made lots of dumb mistakes like that. This person should have corrected their CV once they knew better but I don't know all the details, so I can't really judge. That said, I can't rule out malicious intent like the article linked here suggested, but that's certainly not the only plausible explanation. I don't think it is a good idea for the article's author to only present the worst possible scenario and then conjure up some motivations that are not backed up in any way. It's fine to point out that the prof in question should have known better but it's a little far fetched to make the other claims. And I think it's downright irresponsible to present the worst possible case as the only scenario without even considering other explanations.
The details are important.
Some of the copies of the refereed CV are from 2008 and 2014 , when this guy was a postdoc and then a Professor. There are multiple distinct copies with the references to the two non-existent papers, including from a grant proposal.
http://web.archive.org/web/20141222010849/http:/people.ucsc.edu:80/~ndaviden/ndaviden_cv.pdf
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"Publication B is a little more tricky. I was not able to find the publication as cited by the person in question. It may not exist or I might just not be familiar enough with this field's journals (I notice that the American Journal of Physiology has many subdivisions). The author of the article claims that Publication B as cited is a misrepresentation of another article with a similar title but a different author list. I noticed that Publication B, as cited, quotes page numbers H1-H14. Volume 268 doesn't have page H1-H14 and it doesn't even have Issue 32, as far as I know. This makes me suspect a typo. Also, while it's possible to be the first 14 pages, sometimes drafts/proofs are numbered from page 1 (or A1 or H1 or whatever). Perhaps the person in question, in 1995, when they are at an early stage of their career (an undergrad) simply did not know that the page numbers on a draft manuscript did not actually represent the final published page numbers and they just continued to copy and paste the same CV line for decades. I also know from experience that sometimes as manuscripts and projects evolve, author lists change. Maybe the person in question was removed from the author list but didn't know it. Or maybe there is another article out there and this was just a typo. Note that these page numbers and the author list appear very similar to a 1998 publication also on the CV (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9649363). Maybe the 1995 project that the person in question contributed to was split into two works, one published in 1995 and the other part (where the author got moved to) was published in 1998. Sometimes this happens in my field because the project hit some snags or the lead author had to prioritize other things. So maybe at one point, the person in question was a co-author on the 1995 work but then failed to remove the listing from the CV after the project evolved. "
Why there are three publications, 1995, 1997, and 1998, in multiple versions of a CVs written between 2008 and 2015?
I never heard of a graduate student/postdoc with less than half dozen publications (as for 2008, the earliest referred CV) who is incapable tracking which manuscript he has been an author of (to include one non existent first author manuscript).
Please provide a full length copy of the 1995 and 1997 manuscripts.
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4 hours ago, TakeruK said:
I started with Publication A. Unlike the article's author, I was able to easily find this publication within 5 minutes of searching. Here's what I did. I went to the journal's website. I searched back issues to look for Volume 72, Issue 2. It turns out that there was a meeting and the abstracts of presentations were published in the Biophys J. As a special issue, probably (normal in my field too). With the page number being "A370", it was just a matter of searching through the long list of PDFs organized by session to determine which one A370 belonged to. I found it on Page 22 of this file: http://www.cell.com/biophysj/pdf/S0006-3495(97)78745-9.pdf
This is an archived abstract for a conference presentation. This is not a Journal Manuscript. Big difference in terms of acceptance rate and the effort invested.
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2 hours ago, Sigaba said:
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5 hours ago, TakeruK said:
"...Or maybe there is another article out there and this was just a typo. Note that these page numbers and the author list appear very similar to a 1998 publication also on the CV (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9649363). Maybe the 1995 project that the person in question contributed to was split into two works, one published in 1995 and the other part (where the author got moved to) was published in 1998. Sometimes this happens in my field because the project hit some snags or the lead author had to prioritize other things. So maybe at one point, the person in question was a co-author on the 1995 work but then failed to remove the listing from the CV after the project evolved."
This is not honest mistake.
The 1995 and 1997 papers appear in multiple versions of the CV, for more than decade.
In the 1995 paper the second author name was replaced.
You have a simple task - provide a full copy for these two manuscripts with these authors:
A. Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.
B. Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.
Same with the conference proceedings (short papers, not abstracts for oral presentations!) in the Human Brain Mapping, Vision Science Society, or The Society for Neuroscience.
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1 hour ago, GreenEyedTrombonist said:
For a start, please provide a full copy for one of these presumably journal manuscript:
A. Davidenko, N., Beaumont, J., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1997). Spatio-temporal evolution of spiral wave activity. Biophys. J. 72:2 A370, June 1997.
B. Beaumont, J., Davidenko, N., Davidenko, J.M., and Jalife, J. (1995). A model study of changes in excitability of ventricular muscle cells with repetitive stimulation. Inhibition, facilitation, and hysteresis. Am. J. Physiol. 268; 37:H1-H14, 1995.
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TakeruK
I disagree with your conclusions.
Neither one of the two listed papers exist in the form of a manuscript. If you find such a manuscript (not a title or abstract), please attache it here.
The replacing of someone else name on the 1995 manuscript is no less than outrages.
A conference abstract or a talk are not a substitute for a full length conference proceedings.
Look carefully for how long these wrong details have been used in this guys CV, across how many versions. This is not being sloppy. It is intentional.
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Would you trust as your Professor someone who use false information in his resume to advance his career?
How would you handled yourself if you find yourself in the situation described in this link ?:
https://sciencewatchblog.wordpress.com/what-would-you-do-if-your-university-professor-cheat/
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Not if you are part of a union:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/09/elite-universities-safe-spaces-union
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12 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:
The intention is not to change the entire system. The intention is to provide individuals with an opportunity to publish concerns about a specific incidence, where all other means turn to be ineffective. Importantly, publishing only facts that can be verified.
What will happen next? Maybe nothing. Maybe an administrator that had to act and so far didn't, will feel more committed to take action when evidences he previously ignored are now made public.
Maybe the path for changing the system involves making small changes, one at a time.
What would you do if your University Professor cheat?
in The Lobby
Posted · Edited by Ibn Al-Haytham
WildeThing
"...admission/hiring is usually done in a holistic matter, meaning that singular details become less relevant. Either way, there is no way to know WHY this person was admitted to any of these programs or why he was hired, so we cannot know the significance of these issues. The person's employers and professors were informed of these issues and apparently unanimously decided that no action was merited, perhaps because they didn't base their decisions on admission/hiring on these parts of the person's CV? "
Perhaps you are right. Maybe the specific 'inaccuracies' in a Professor CV shouldn't have any impact on hiring decisions. So maybe there is no harm now in keeping someone who uses false credentials in his CV as a University Professor.
"They do seem to have reacted, as the professor has removed these issues from his CV. It seems that they (people in separate organizations) have decided that no further action is necessary (or they took private measures, we do not know), and I see no reason to believe that their reactions were inappropriate."
Maybe the informed University administrators did all that has to be done or could be done. Maybe they didn't feel uncomfortable with the confrontation or the embarrassment, and did whatever has to be done. Maybe this entire thing can be forgotten and it is no longer anyone concern. Maybe all the colleagues of this Professor value him like they value all their other colleagues. For example, if he would write a glowing recommendation letter for one of his graduate students for some internal scholarship, his letter would be valued just like any other recommendation written by any other Professor. Maybe there is no harm of any kind being mentored by such a Professor.