The high-tec war on science.

Science is “the most successful enterprise (in terms of fulfilment of declared ambitions) that
human beings have ever engaged upon”. Peter Medawar, Nobel Laureate.

Statcheck: A program developed by Chris Hartgerink of Tilberg University. It reviews and

evaluates scientific literature, checking the maths behind every statistical result, with the
objective of uncovering scientific fraud.

It raises questions of ethics, privacy and the future of science.

The historian Daniel Kevles said, “For many, fraud in the biomedical sciences was akin to
pederasty among priests”.

Studies which depended on scientists honestly reporting their own misconduct concluded that
about 2% of scientists had falsified data at some point in their career.

Hartgerink and Van Assen believe the rate of misconduct is more prevalent than most
scientists would like to admit and higher than 2%.

Tilberg University is famous for Diedrik Stapel, a psychologist and dean of the university, who
falsified entire databases.

Statatitian and psychologist Van Assen once said that to fix the problems in psychology it might
be simpler to toss out 150 years of research and start again.

There exists a “replication crises”. Many published results cannot be replicated because
original studies are marred by unchecked bias and human error.

Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist, believes the replication crises is more relevant than fraud
which he believes is a minor problem.

The task of keeping science honest is left to individual scientists in the hope they will police
themselves.

Authority rests in the hands of journals, universities and funders.

Reviewers and editors are not looking for potential problems.

In defense of the program; science should be about transparency, criticism and truth.

Is there a secretive culture of science?

Is statcheck, as Susan Frisk says, “self-appointed data police” a “form of harassment”

Could this signal an existential crisis in science?