During my psyche undergrad research project nearly every group (of all girls, I was the only male out of like 40) lost considerable grade points for fudging or downright altering data to make their hypothesis fit and the project succeed. From deleting anomalous points to going back to change the words so you were "always expecting this" to just filling out their own surveys. No regard for anything but being right and only cared because they got caught.
These were juniors, so those who had already past the filtering period and were going to graduate. And a few I knew personally from other classes already had grad school lined up and paid for (because woman and color means free money). So the "future" of the research industry.
So you should never expect shit from "experts and researches" beyond them to find what they were paid to find. And their data is only useful if it was collected from a raw source, like a database instead of a questionnaire.
I remember in one of my science classes one day my teacher said "I noticed some of you turned in assignments where all the data points fit within expected parameters and almost perfectly fit the hypothesis. I watched all of you during the assignment...next time please do not pick-and-choose your equipment readings."
He was right; some of the students misunderstood the assignment and scrambled to rerun the tests, a few others really wanted that A.
A lot of the time I don't even think its malicious, its people are so trained by the education system to think "being wrong" means "zero points." So when their data starts coming back as disproving their hypothesis, they think it'll be a failure and panic.
But regardless of the reason, it undermines almost all studies they do when they show themselves willing to fudge data to protect their appearance/grade/ego.
During my psyche undergrad research project nearly every group (of all girls, I was the only male out of like 40) lost considerable grade points for fudging or downright altering data to make their hypothesis fit and the project succeed. From deleting anomalous points to going back to change the words so you were "always expecting this" to just filling out their own surveys. No regard for anything but being right and only cared because they got caught.
These were juniors, so those who had already past the filtering period and were going to graduate. And a few I knew personally from other classes already had grad school lined up and paid for (because woman and color means free money). So the "future" of the research industry.
So you should never expect shit from "experts and researches" beyond them to find what they were paid to find. And their data is only useful if it was collected from a raw source, like a database instead of a questionnaire.
I remember in one of my science classes one day my teacher said "I noticed some of you turned in assignments where all the data points fit within expected parameters and almost perfectly fit the hypothesis. I watched all of you during the assignment...next time please do not pick-and-choose your equipment readings."
He was right; some of the students misunderstood the assignment and scrambled to rerun the tests, a few others really wanted that A.
A lot of the time I don't even think its malicious, its people are so trained by the education system to think "being wrong" means "zero points." So when their data starts coming back as disproving their hypothesis, they think it'll be a failure and panic.
But regardless of the reason, it undermines almost all studies they do when they show themselves willing to fudge data to protect their appearance/grade/ego.