Thread by @AcademicFrauds1

After #PruittGate, #PruittData, or #perchgate, people wonder why someone would tamper with their own data. If I look at my own experience in prominent places (Ivy League and others), it seems pretty obvious.

PIs do not have much time to do research. Superstars have even less time. The time devoted to experimental work is obviously scarce. But the time for the kind of deep boring and stressful thinking you have to do to come up with new ideas is also running out.

They then seem more interested in the story they are following than in an impartial quest for knowledge. As long as they continue the story that made them stars, no one will wonder what they are doing.

You are young and quite impressed with these important people who seem to know what they are doing. Your private investigator is only interested in your work if you bring the right kind of results. But you are only able to get results that don't fit the right story.

Furthermore, they are not as sophisticated as the work of other famous groups. They may just be producing false data, but who are you to question the work of the superstars.

So you work for hours to produce more and you get closer to depression. Never forget that you are much more likely to achieve succesfully a depression in the university environment than anything else (professorship, scholarships, etc...).

So when your PI remembers you exist and yells at you that you're not doing the right job, what do you do?

You can sink even deeper into depression or maybe start telling false stories to this PI. Is that really a problem? You only them see once every two months, you gained some peace of mind, and they will probably forget about you as soon as you leave the room.

You notice something different. When you start feeding people what they want, no one questions the reality of your work. Even better, you are starting to receive praise and resources are now devoted to you.

When Jimmy McNulty did something similar in The Wire, his heart was in the right place. You are still committed to producing real science. But now that you open Pandora's box, where does the border end?

As long as you give people what they want, no one ever deepens or check your work. Isn't it great? Everyone is happy, the accepted theories are confirmed. Superstars recommend you, it's easier to publish in high-impact journals, and an academic career is now viable.

You can do this to help you finish your doctorate. But if you take it a step further, you could get this professorship or scholarship or whatever. When people find the fakes, if they ever find them, you can always do as they did with microbiology fraud.

"Scientific standards were different, it was a long time ago." You will most likely keep your position and your security and will be able to terrorize your own students and post doctorants.