Science Education Portraits III Perceived Prevalence of Data Fabrication and or Falsification in Research.

Citation: Ling, MHT. 2018. Science/Education Portraits III: Perceived Prevalence of Data Fabrication and/or Falsification in Research. Advances in Biotechnology and Microbiology 11(5):555824.

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Data fabrication or falsification are considered as “deadly sins” with high impact, above plagiarism, on scientific truth and public confidence. What is the estimated prevalence of data fabrication or falsification? A meta-survey published a decade ago estimated 14.12% of respondents having knowledge of a colleague who fabricated or falsified research data, or who altered or modified research data. This mini-review updates this meta-survey by examining surveys from 2009 to 2018. Results suggests that 17.7% of responses indicated knowledge of fellow scientist’s acts of data fabrication or data falsification. This is consistent with that of a decade ago, which suggests a critical need to address the worst type of research misconduct – data fabrication and falsification.