
{"id":7663,"date":"2023-06-01T12:11:17","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T12:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/podcast\/fighting-scientific-fraud-elisabeth-bik-on-her-experiences-as-a-scientific-integrity-consultant\/"},"modified":"2024-03-05T06:20:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T06:20:39","slug":"fighting-scientific-fraud-elisabeth-bik-on-her-experiences-as-a-scientific-integrity-consultant","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/fighting-scientific-fraud-elisabeth-bik-on-her-experiences-as-a-scientific-integrity-consultant","title":{"rendered":"Fighting scientific fraud: Elisabeth Bik on her experiences as a scientific integrity consultant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Elisabeth Bik has had an unusual scientific career. It\u2019s one that combines all the hunger for truth of a scientist and all the persistence and courage of a detective. A microbiologist by training, she worked as a scientist studying the microbiome for several years, until she began noticing instances of plagiarism and other ethical issues in published papers. Her curiosity about the prevalence of these problems led her to systematically investigate signs of scientific fraud and, eventually, to quitting her job and volunteering as a full-time scientific integrity consultant.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Her extensive work, particularly in flagging problematic image manipulation, has helped purge scientific literature of unreliable findings and earned her the 2021 John Maddox Prize for outstanding work on exposing threats to scientific integrity. She continues her work tirelessly today and shares what she finds with the broader academic community through multiple channels.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">In a two-part interview for All Things SciComm, she discusses her work and how she became interested in doing what she does and the myriad factors involved in the occurrence and prevention of scientific fraud.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">We bring you the second part of the interview here, where you can hear her talk about the role that different segments of the scientific community can play together to address unethical research. She also discusses the frustration of not seeing unethical practices being addressed, the retaliation and threats she faces because of her work, what keeps her going, and how social media can both help flag problematic research and undermine trust in science.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">All Things SciComm is a podcast series by ScienceTalks (an initiative of Cactus Communications). This episode is being republished on Editage Insights with permission.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\">The podcast is also available at <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/scientific-misconduct-paper-mills-and-social-media\/id1612003595?i=1000613928657\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>[Podcast transcript]<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">It takes a lot of courage to do what you do, Elisabeth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Obviously, the work that I do is not making people happy. I have been attacked by what seemed to be armies of trolls. I try not to accuse people of misconduct. I just try to raise concerns. It\u2019s frustrating that I have suspicions about the quality of papers, whether they\u2019re errors or misconduct, and that these cases are not acted upon. If we see these cases not having any consequences, that\u2019s frustrating for the honest people. I also am very aware that my work on science misconduct could be interpreted as all science is fraudulent, and I do not want that to be the message of my work.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">For me, science is about finding the truth. Science is about being honest. For me, science misconduct, therefore, is against everything that science should be. Because if you do misconduct, you\u2019re not telling the truth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Female Narrator<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Thank you for joining us, again. This is a continuation of the previous episode. As always, here\u2019s your host, Nikesh Gosalia.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">We\u2019ve mainly spoken a lot about a publisher\u2019s role, a researcher\u2019s role in this, Elisabeth, but do you think there are other stakeholders that can also contribute to this? There are, for example, funders, there are research institutes, there could potentially be vendors, do you think they have a role as well? If so, what could potentially be their role?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">It takes a village, it takes all the stakeholders, and I\u2019m not a big fan of that word, but I\u2019ll use it here. It takes all these institutions, all these publishers, all these authors and funders to play a role in combating misconduct because I\u2019ve seen too many cases where maybe I write to a journal with a big concern, the journal then writes to the authors or maybe to the institution, and then nobody answers. Like there\u2019s no outcome.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">The institution might send something vague, like we\u2019ll investigate, and then nothing comes out of it year after year after year. Then, the whole process of science should be self-correcting comes to a halt because nothing happens for all those years. The journal doesn\u2019t really dare to take a decision by themselves. They\u2019re waiting for the institution, the institution is waiting for the authors to respond, the authors have moved somewhere else, and all these cases lead to basically nothing happening.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">And so, I\u2019m posting all these cases of suspected image problems on PubPeer just to warn readers like there\u2019s a problem with this paper, I reported it, but nothing is happening and at least proceed with caution, because this is what I found. We, unfortunately, have seen that too many of these cases are just not responded to for whatever reasons. Yes, it takes all these people. I\u2019ve written to the Office of Research Integrity with several concerns, and they haven\u2019t even answered me. I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re understaffed, or they don\u2019t trust my data or whatever. But for whatever reason, they didn\u2019t even send me an email back saying thank you for your email, we got it, we\u2019re on it. No, nothing, like not even a reply.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">And so, it\u2019s frustrating that I have suspicions about the quality of papers, whether they\u2019re errors or misconduct, and that these cases are not acted upon. We just need everybody to be involved to do more of their best because if we see these cases not having any consequences, that\u2019s frustrating for the honest people. If we see that people can do misconduct and not be punished in whatever way, then the good people will leave science, and we only end up with the bad apples who contaminate the rest of the fruit baskets.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">We need to have consequences for people who are doing the wrong things.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I also know, Elisabeth, that a few publishers, even organizations like STM, are trying to tackle the whole issue, at least around paper mills. They\u2019ve formed a coalition and trying to, but in your opinion, again, are there any specific publishers, academic societies, it could be even research institutes. Do you see anyone specifically kind of doing more active work in this area of solving fraud?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I\u2019ve seen at every publisher, I\u2019ve met wonderful people who are very concerned about fraud and paper mills, we haven\u2019t really talked about that, but that is sort of the organized crime of science misconduct, like the institutions or companies that make fake papers and sell the authorship positions to authors, particularly in countries with very strict requirements for authorships. Those will be China, Russia, Iran, I think Egypt.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">We\u2019ve seen these massive amounts of papers that all look very similar to each other, and presumably, are fake. Obviously, publishers were accepting this. They were naive to seeing that. I was part of a team of volunteers who noticed that all these papers were very similar or had things in common and they all looked fake. If you look carefully, there were weird errors in them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">And so, now scientific publishers are more aware of these. They obviously want to prevent these cases for being submitted or published in the first place. They are taking rolls to find these papers, but of course, the paper mills are getting more clever as well, so it\u2019s a rat race, I guess who wins? But yeah, there are serious efforts at most scientific publishers to tackle that. But there\u2019s a lot of individual cases, I feel I am very concerned about that, scientific publishers across the board, I cannot name any specific one, have done really poorly in responding to my request for an investigation or retraction of the paper.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">In general, I see an improvement. They are doing more than they did, let\u2019s say, 5, 6, 7 years ago, but it\u2019s still very slowly. They need to respond much faster.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">It takes a lot of courage to do what you do, Elisabeth. Is there potentially, for lack of a better word, a dark side to the work you do? You might have faced multiple instances of retaliation, including false impersonations to even, say, a legal recourse. Can you maybe talk a little bit about those experiences and how they\u2019ve impacted you? Probably not in just the professional sense, but maybe as a person as well and how you have emerged out of it, because I mean, this could be really motivating for a lot of us, including me.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I mean, obviously, the work that I do is not making people happy. I completely understand that an author whose work has been criticized, is not going to embrace that criticism and be very happy with me as a person. But I\u2019ve seen some cases where the scientists, whose work I criticize, have immediately attacked me back. Instead of answering questions like, did you have an IRB approval for this study? Or can you elaborate a little bit more on the composition of your control group? Or can you look at this particular figure that looks like it might have a problem?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Instead of answering that and taking away my concerns, they have attacked me as a person, like they have attacked the places I\u2019ve worked, the number of papers I have published, so lots of things, the way I look to my current profession, calling me a failed scientist or a person of medium intelligence and trying to denigrate me. I can see why they do that. They want to basically divert the attention from the real criticism towards me. That has not been easy always.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I am very active on Twitter, and I have been attacked by what seemed to be armies of trolls, coordinated attacks, where I\u2019ve been receiving death threats or just remarks on the way I look or where I live. Like I\u2019ve been doxxed where I live. It\u2019s not pleasant. I have had several sleepless nights, and I cried, and yeah, it does take a toll on you.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I think because these attacks gradually are becoming worse, I\u2019ve sort of dealt with them. For my personal mental health, I sometimes lock down my Twitter, because I do not want to see all these nasty comments. I just will set it to Private. And so, these people who do not follow me cannot really attack me at that point. Then, usually, after a couple of days, they go away, and then I open my Twitter again. But, yeah, it\u2019s not been fun.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I haven\u2019t received any personal harm type of things where I\u2019m really worried about my safety myself. It\u2019s mainly online, some nasty emails. The doxxing of my home address was scary, even though I think if you dig deep, you can find where I live. But to see it online, somebody tweeting that to their million followers, that is just very scary.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Yeah, I was worried about that. But luckily, as of now, it\u2019s fairly quiet until the next attack happens. I\u2019ve been threatened with legal threats. So far, I\u2019ve been out of legal trouble, I haven\u2019t been sued. But I\u2019ve been threatened to be sued several times. I think that\u2019s just a way of trying to intimidate me, trying to silence me. This is why I\u2019m happy that I am not employed. I don\u2019t have a boss telling me what I should do. They cannot write to my boss saying that I\u2019m doing bad things online or so. I don\u2019t really have a career that they can damage, I guess, because I work for myself, so they cannot really damage that, I hope.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I have received a lot of support from the scientific community. Whenever there were some legal threats of lawsuits, a lot of people have signed petitions, saying they support my work. I\u2019m trying to always remain polite, not resort to insulting or harassing people. I hope that\u2019s my strength. I try not to accuse people of misconduct. I just try to raise concerns. I hope that keeps me on the right side of being sued.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">This is very motivational, Elisabeth, and the kind of work you do and to take on all of that, especially in terms of like you mentioned a few examples, but still continue to do the kind of work is extremely motivating.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">While I wanted to do this towards the end, but a huge thank you to you for the kind of work you do. We need more of this happening. Hopefully, this is the start of many others feeling motivated and encouraged to call these things out and not fear.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Moving on to the role of maybe some of the other mediums. Specifically, role of social media, perhaps to some extent, just the mainstream television as well, in the dissemination of scientific research, I think it\u2019s an obvious question. Do you think it plays an important role? Could they be doing something more? I mean, just what are your overall thoughts in terms of role of social media?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I am a big fan of social media. I think it can, with all its nastiness, all the trolls and all the bots and whatever, it does play, I feel, an important role in shining light on things that go wrong in society, whether that\u2019s science misconduct or sexual harassment or police brutality towards people of color. I feel social media has played an enormous role in showing footage, showing evidence of what happens and no longer can authorities deny that these things happen. I\u2019m a big fan of using it for that purpose.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Sunshine is the best disinfectant. If we see video of a police officer beating a person who is unarmed, I feel that that has played a huge role in showing that these things really happen. And so, similarly, I try to use social media to talk about science misconduct, without, I hope, pointing fingers towards who has done it. But I do point to problems in papers. I make it about the papers, not about the persons. I hope I\u2019ve made people aware of that.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I\u2019m also aware that this is a double-edged sword because we\u2019ve seen in the past two years, three years that science has lost a lot of its credibility, that more and more people are following conspiracy theories and are not listening to scientists anymore, actually accusing scientists of being part of a conspiracy theory that scientists are bringing fake news, and that is really damaging to science, obviously. I\u2019m not sure how that has happened, how people have been so misled by people spreading misinformation, how few people are actually critically listening to these people and how much influence these people have also on social media. There is a double-edged sword to that.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I also am very aware that my work on science misconduct could be interpreted as all science is fraudulent and don\u2019t believe in science anymore, because all scientists are fraudulent. I do not want that to be the message of my work. I always warn for that at the end of when I give a talk, like we need science to solve all the problems in the world. We need science to be good. We need to be able to trust science. Yes, there are some bad apples in science. But there\u2019s also a lot of great science.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Most of sciences is great. Science is slow and science sometimes for an outsider can be very confusing to interpret the results. But I\u2019m a firm believer of science. And so, I hope that\u2019s the message of the work that we do. I\u2019m not alone. There\u2019s a small army of people who want to make science better and in one way or another, try to contribute to that by flagging papers that we believe are not great.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Staying on with social media, Elisabeth, do you think \u2013 I mean, we know during the whole period of COVID and afterwards as well, there\u2019s been a lot of requests for social media platforms and organizations to play their role as well, in terms of just helping to bring out the truth, not really promoting fake information, etcetera. From science point of view, do you think these platforms are doing enough to maybe encourage the right science or do you think it\u2019s lost somewhere in all of the other things that they\u2019re kind of focusing on?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">They were but with the new leadership of Twitter, in particular, we\u2019ve seen that a lot of accounts, who had been removed from the platform because they were spreading misinformation, are back and have more followers than ever. A lot of these people who had, let\u2019s say, 200 followers three years ago, now have like hundreds of thousands of followers. Because I think people love to see this misinformation.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">People are, I think, not always educated enough to distinguish real from fake, and they love these new stars who claim that all scientists are fraudulent, and COVID vaccines are going to kill us all. They don\u2019t have the critical capacity to look into the real data, or they just don\u2019t believe anything anymore. It\u2019s weird to see how Twitter used to be able to handle that in some way or another. You could report these accounts, and they sometimes were suspended. But nowadays, they\u2019re all reinstated.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">The current leader of Twitter himself is a believer in all kinds of misinformation. And so, I\u2019m worried about that. I do feel that Facebook and YouTube, they still have moderation, and misinformation gets removed or flagged at least, but Twitter is not doing that anymore. That is worrisome. I\u2019m daily asking myself, should I remain on Twitter, or should I leave it? I\u2019m not sure what the answer is to that, because I do feel it\u2019s my platform.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">If I leave, if all the scientists leave, then that sets us up for even more information, but it\u2019s weird to see if I say vaccines help, vaccines work, which I\u2019d posted a couple of weeks ago, the amount of death threats I received after that is just staggering. I reported all of them, and Twitter just says, no, it\u2019s freedom of speech, we\u2019re not going to moderate that. I feel the whole moderation team on Twitter has been fired. It\u2019s a weird place right now, and I\u2019m not quite sure what will come out of it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">As far as your own experience is concerned, Elisabeth, what news sources or websites do you trust when you\u2019re looking for, say, unbiased research or information? Where would you typically go when you\u2019re looking for say the truth? Which websites maybe you avoid?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I would go to PubMed, like do a literature search or go to information by the CDC or another respected university, their medical pages, and if I want to have information about vaccines or so, or the New York Times, like I have particular sources I trust. I know there\u2019s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes of, in particular, the New York Times in fact-checking and verification. I don\u2019t believe a website that is set up by people who are all anonymous, who just link to other blogposts or who rely on anecdotal information. I don\u2019t trust those websites.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I feel maybe as a scientist and because of my background, I have a fairly good idea of what to trust and not to trust. I might be wrong sometimes. There have been papers which look convincing to me that then turn out to be fake. It\u2019s sometimes very hard to tell even for me, but in general, I feel like if a paper has been published on in a respectable journal, most of the times you can trust it. But yeah, there is a caveat that papers could be fake, and you might not even see it.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">As the most extreme example and recent example, the Surgisphere paper got published in The Lancet, which normally is a very trusted source of information. But this paper turned out to have, at least partially, fabricated data. I mean, a part of it was made up. It\u2019s unclear which parts were made up, but this paper got retracted. It was not for me obvious, like I even tweeted this paper because I thought, oh, this paper looks exciting, and it turns out to be fake. But it\u2019s very hard to tell sometimes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Detecting fraud, it almost right now seems like a never-ending battle, considering the fact that\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Yes.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">You are in the midst of all of this, Elisabeth, and for me, obviously, it\u2019s kind of I know about it, but it\u2019s been just so much knowledge that I\u2019ve got over the last one hour that we\u2019ve spoken about. Are there times when you feel oh, God, I mean, where do I start all over again? It\u2019s almost like a hopeless endeavor. Then, what motivates you to keep going? I mean, how do you kind of get yourself up again?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Well, you\u2019re right, like there are days in which I think there\u2019s so many papers that I still need to look at and flag, and I get daily requests, like I get more than I can handle. And so, it seems like it\u2019s a never-ending battle. But I do feel if we give up on science and being critical of science, that is, in our opinion, of concern, that means giving up on science as a whole. And so, I don\u2019t want to do that. But what motivates me is, for me, science is about finding the truth. I usually start my talks by that. Of course, you can have that results in long discussion about what the truth is. I don\u2019t want to make it super philosophical or so.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">But for me, science is about being honest and about reporting what you have seen with all its flaws and uncertainties at times. For me, science misconduct, therefore, is against everything that science should be. Because if you do misconduct, you\u2019re not telling the truth, you\u2019re hiding it. That makes me angry. That makes me \u2013 people who do misconduct, who willingly spread misinformation or fake data, they are not doing science. They should not be calling themselves a scientist. They\u2019re not worth being a scientist, in my opinion. That makes me angry, that makes me motivated, and that keeps me going.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">But yeah, on some days, it just feels that there\u2019s a lot of work to be done, and it\u2019s just never ending. I notice several other people who do this work, maybe a little bit more behind the scenes. They flag large amounts of papers every day, and we hope that people who can install the PubPeer plugin, you can see which papers we have flagged and so you can be aware which papers might have a potential problem. That\u2019s the best we can do. But we do it with passion, and we\u2019re not giving up yet. We keep on doing this.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Talking more in details with you, Elisabeth, I, of course, realize how essential your work is. You obviously do that with 100% passion and motivation. But say for the listeners, what would you tell anyone who\u2019s interested in doing similar work to you?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I would say look at websites like Retraction Watch and PubPeer and see what gets published on science misconduct or suspicions of errors or fraud. On PubPeer, we and \u2013 again, this is a little army of volunteers and often anonymous persons, we flag as many papers as possible there.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">If you just go to PubPeer.com, you can see what gets posted there, you get an idea of the types of problems you might encounter in a scientific paper. I post these examples also on Twitter under the #imageforensics, and I think people are now starting to see this themselves. Almost every day, I get an email or a direct message saying, oh, I found one. I was doing a peer review and I found a duplication. I hope I have taught people how to see these. You just need to have some training.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">On PubPeer, you\u2019ll see many more types of problems, and Retraction Watch is when a paper gets flagged for a concern and gets investigated properly, it might get retracted, and then it might end up on the blog, Retraction Watch. You can read about all kinds of reasons why papers get retracted. I think it\u2019s both entertaining as well as disturbing but very educational. You can read about peer review of rings and people making up false data or fake data and people citing themselves way more than they should. It\u2019s sometimes very entertaining to read about what people do wrong in science. You can learn from that and become \u2013 you might start to detect those things yourself.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Again, for those of our listeners who would love to hear more from you or even get in touch with you, where can they go to support you and all the work that you\u2019re doing?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">They can follow me on Twitter. I\u2019m Elisabeth Bik with an S. My handle is MicrobiomDigest without the E in the middle. But if you just search for my name, you\u2019ll find it. I also have a Patreon account where people can donate small amounts of money per month. Together, that gives me a basic income so that I don\u2019t have to worry too much about not having a job and getting paid for this. I don\u2019t want to apply for grants because I feel the work that I do is unpredictable. I don\u2019t want to have to live up to some artificial goal that I should reach at after a couple of years of funding.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">I\u2019m trying to stay away from grants, even though people send me grants like, oh, this should be like something you do. Like I don\u2019t really have a plan what I do, I just work off of tips. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s really what people would be willing to fund, but donations on Patreon, so Elisabeth Bik on Patreon. I\u2019d be very happy with any donation as much as you can miss. I know for some people that\u2019s just one dollar or one euro a month. I\u2019d be totally thrilled to have you as one of my supporters.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">That\u2019s all we have for today, Elisabeth. Thank you so much for your time. I feel absolutely motivated with the kind of work that you\u2019re doing. This was so knowledgeable for me, and I\u2019m sure for all our listeners as well.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Elisabeth Bik<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Well, it was my pleasure, Nikesh, to be here and thank you for having me on.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Nikesh Gosalia<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Thank you, listeners for tuning in. If you like this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and Google podcasts. Have a great week, everyone. Until next time.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\"><b>Female Narrator<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">All Things SciComm is brought to you by Science Talks, a science media channel that aims to make science accessible to all. We publish articles, videos, podcasts, and magazines. To read a transcript of this episode or watch it on YouTube, visit sciencetalks.org. Also, write to us with your views, questions, and guest recommendations at contact@sciencetalks.org. Science Talks, bringing science to you.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify; margin:0cm 0cm 8pt\"><span style=\"font-size:11pt\"><span style=\"line-height:107%\"><span style=\"font-family:Calibri,sans-serif\">Listen to the first part and many other episodes <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5gIyBzZwX4FocgMEx6QVRC?si=fe6e124591064e18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-7663","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Fighting scientific fraud: Elisabeth Bik on her experiences as a scientific integrity consultant | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We bring you the second part of the All Things SciComm interview with Elisabeth Bik, where you can hear her talk about the role that different segments of the scientific community can play together to address unethical research. 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