Cheating in science

A friend posted an interesting two-part article from Psychology Today about cheating in science. Part 1 Part 2. Coincidentally, this dovetails with another story about cheating (in journalism) posted by CNN a few days back.

I am happy to report that I did not witness - or at least was not aware - of any fraud during my time at Cornell. It might be harder to get away with in astronomy and the natural sciences, as opposed to the behavioral sciences discussed in the articles, simply because there are fewer excuses for nonrepeatability of results. Mice could behave differently, but photons generally don't.

That said, it's an opportunity to share my personal experiences with cheating. Rather, it's a single experience, but it's bothered me enough to admit it.

I never cheated on any homework or test in K-12. In fact, I even turned in a poor guy who was cheating on an 8th grade science test. I did it discreetly, and I have hope that the teacher was gentle, but I still feel guilty about it. I should've approached him directly. But I didn't, maybe because I had a rigid view of right and wrong, and maybe because I was particularly hierarchical in my value system.

Thanks to a belief in both Harvey Mudd's Honor Code and my own (somewhat unrealistic) belief in my own abilities, I never cheated in college. There were a few reported incidents of cheating by peers in college, but they were largely regarded as one-offs. I'm sure it happened, but, charitably, I'd like to think it happened less frequently than at other colleges.

At Cornell, I remember the stress, panic, and depression starting to set in toward the end of the first semester. My grades were reasonably good, but my research was not, and the doubts I had about pursuing astronomy were beginning to be confirmed. It was perhaps a product of my decreasing confidence that I cheated for the first and last time on an academic test. I don't recall which class it was, but I recall using outside materials and seeking outside help.

I felt terrible about it, terrible for a long time. It may or may not have made a difference in my final grade, but as the difference was perhaps between a B+ and a B, it didn't matter by grad school standards.

It did, however, profoundly impact my view of myself as an honest scientist.

Much later, I did hear about other tales at Cornell of academic dishonesty. They included the absurd - a former professor, well before my time, was caught double-billing his travel expenses to NSF. They also included the depressing - an employee admitted to working half-time for the last few years on a program, but then proceeded to hold the project hostage. Such are the perils of smaller research projects - one person really can be irreplaceable.

I was never, ever pressured to deliver results by others; in that, I think I was far more fortunate than most people in grad school. (It helped I had my own money - the NSF fellowship.) However, I can understand and sympathize with the self-imposed pressures of individuals - some of whom, let's admit frankly, are the product of a selection effect that discourages those who are well-rounded or have developed a healthy self-esteem across multiple areas - who would be so obsessed with academic approval that we would compromise our values to keep the supply flowing. This in no way applies to my former colleagues - most of whom, I confess, I was jealous of because they did seem pretty well-adjusted.

All this to say that self-imposed pressures can lead good people to cheat. And, like so many sins, once it is committed, it becomes easier to continue along that path.

I never cheated in school again - honestly, it wouldn't have helped. But I can imagine that those who find a way for it to work, those who have a combination of bad fortune to have an onerous PI, or uncooperative project, coupled with disinterest in making the project work, or perhaps a desperate need to be a "success", would feel that cheating was a way out.

Cheating, is of course, not limited to the sciences. As I mentioned earlier, there was a fascinating case about a journalist who fabricated stories for The New Republic - it's a worthy read for the psychological insight into the man and his motivations.

It also brings up the issue of redemption - in science, there is none for cheating. What about in the rest of life? Do we really believe in the possibility of transformation stories - to use a biblical reference, the conversion of Saul to Paul - or do we really ascribe to a view that reform is impossible?

I think our words and our actions reveal two different answers. For a Christian nation, we do believe in the death penalty, life without parole, incarceration over rehabilitation, and marking individuals who are released with their own version of Jean Veljean's yellow convict papers. We hold people's past misdeeds against them, and forget their good actions. We're bad at weighing things in a balanced fashion. There may be evolutionary reasons for this, but I'd hope that we depend upon more than evolutionary selection to base our moral philosophy.

Have you cheated? Academically? Personally? Did you feel remorse? Did you get away with it?