Michael LaCour had a successful career ahead of him, it seemed. He received a PhD in political science from UCLA in spring this year. Prestigious scientific journals published his papers. His CV lists a dozen awards and fellowships. Conference presentations, teaching experience, coverage in The Economist: it is all there.
The study he co-authored with a Columbia researcher, Donald Green, was dubbed one of the most important political science studies in 2014. It found that gay canvassers could change people’s attitudes on gay marriage through door-to-door campaigns, which contradicted findings of previous studies. All the major newspapers in the USA covered it. Meanwhile, LaCour announced on his Facebook profile that he received a professorship offer from Princeton. Then, a turnover. Graduate student David Broockman wanted to conduct his own research based on LaCour’s study. In the process, Broockman encountered peculiarities that he couldn’t explain. "Some small part of my head thought, 'I wonder if it was fake,'" Broockman told the New York Magazine. The evidence pointed to a single conclusion: LaCour was lying. And now, he is being accused of misconduct in his previous studies as well. It is hard not to conclude that research misconduct has gotten worse, a recent New York Times editorial stated. Indeed, in the last five years, numerous high-profile cases of scientific fraud occupied headlines of newspapers around the world. The problem stretches across borders, from biology to sociology, from the Netherlands to Japan. False studies provide a false basis for making important decisions, such as how to cure illnesses. They reduce the trust in scientists and hinder the functioning of the wheel of science. But why do scientists cheat?
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