Scientific Fraud Blog
Created May 1, 2021 | Updated February 22, 2026 | Blog
• “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” - Marcia Angell, MD
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness” - Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4572812
• Search term "peer review system broken" : https://www.qwant.com/?q=peer%20review%20system%20broken
• “Peer Reviewed:” Science Losing Credibility As Large Amounts Of Research Shown To Be False | By Arjun Walia, Collective Evolution: March 1, 2017: https://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/03/01/peer-reviewed-science-losing-credibility-as-large-amounts-of-research-shown-to-be-false
• Many recent, published studies (i.e. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7076467/) don't have a "Method" section, disregarding "scientific method."
• How to survive the medical misinformation mess | By John P. A. Ioannidis, Michael E. Stuart, Shannon Brownlee, Sheri A. Strite, September 7, 2017: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.12834
"For example, a recent study showed that several editors of peer-reviewed journals could not tell whether a trial was randomised without a special checklist. Even then, of the 324 studies editorial staff considered as randomised trials, 127 (39%) were actually not randomised [21]."
"One study found that nearly half of abstracts of randomised controlled trials contained biased reporting of study results, implying benefit when there was no statistically significant difference in the primary endpoint between study arms [22]."
• What a massive database of retracted papers reveals about science publishing’s ‘death penalty’ | By Jeffrey Brainard and Jia You, Science, October 25, 2018: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/what-massive-database-retracted-papers-reveals-about-science-publishing-s-death-penalty
• Recent events highlight an unpleasant scientific practice: ethics dumping. Rich-world scientists conduct questionable experiments in poor countries | The Economist, January 31, 2019 edition: https://archive.fo/PHTbd / https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/02/02/recent-events-highlight-an-unpleasant-scientific-practice-ethics-dumping
• Most scientists 'can't replicate studies by their peers' | By Tom Feilden, BBC News, February 22, 2017: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
• Payments by Drug and Medical Device Manufacturers to US Peer Reviewers of Major Medical Journals | By David-Dan Nguyen, MDCM, MPH, Anju Murayama, and Anna-Lisa Nguyen, BHSc, JAMA, October 10, 2024: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2824834
• At the next March for Science, chant:
Q: What do we want?
A: Science!
Q: When do we want it?
A: After several double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, crossover, multi-centered, paid-off peer-reviewed studies that no one has been able to replicate.
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness” - Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4572812
• Search term "peer review system broken" : https://www.qwant.com/?q=peer%20review%20system%20broken
• “Peer Reviewed:” Science Losing Credibility As Large Amounts Of Research Shown To Be False | By Arjun Walia, Collective Evolution: March 1, 2017: https://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/03/01/peer-reviewed-science-losing-credibility-as-large-amounts-of-research-shown-to-be-false
• Many recent, published studies (i.e. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7076467/) don't have a "Method" section, disregarding "scientific method."
• How to survive the medical misinformation mess | By John P. A. Ioannidis, Michael E. Stuart, Shannon Brownlee, Sheri A. Strite, September 7, 2017: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.12834
"For example, a recent study showed that several editors of peer-reviewed journals could not tell whether a trial was randomised without a special checklist. Even then, of the 324 studies editorial staff considered as randomised trials, 127 (39%) were actually not randomised [21]."
"One study found that nearly half of abstracts of randomised controlled trials contained biased reporting of study results, implying benefit when there was no statistically significant difference in the primary endpoint between study arms [22]."
• What a massive database of retracted papers reveals about science publishing’s ‘death penalty’ | By Jeffrey Brainard and Jia You, Science, October 25, 2018: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/what-massive-database-retracted-papers-reveals-about-science-publishing-s-death-penalty
• Recent events highlight an unpleasant scientific practice: ethics dumping. Rich-world scientists conduct questionable experiments in poor countries | The Economist, January 31, 2019 edition: https://archive.fo/PHTbd / https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/02/02/recent-events-highlight-an-unpleasant-scientific-practice-ethics-dumping
• Most scientists 'can't replicate studies by their peers' | By Tom Feilden, BBC News, February 22, 2017: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
• Payments by Drug and Medical Device Manufacturers to US Peer Reviewers of Major Medical Journals | By David-Dan Nguyen, MDCM, MPH, Anju Murayama, and Anna-Lisa Nguyen, BHSc, JAMA, October 10, 2024: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2824834
• At the next March for Science, chant:
Q: What do we want?
A: Science!
Q: When do we want it?
A: After several double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, crossover, multi-centered, paid-off peer-reviewed studies that no one has been able to replicate.
