[VSerge]

A scientist that causes, through willful fraud, the death of people seems to be guilty of something like manslaughter. Using fake data is a pretty clear-cut example of willful fraud, and a reasearcher fudging data over such a life and death question should 100% be held accountable.

Scientists making errors in good faith should on the other hand be insulated from any kind of liability.

[auggierose]

You cannot insulate scientists making errors in good faith from any kind of liability, if you make the wilful frauds liable. Because there is no 100% way of distinguishing the two.

[zug_zug]

There are cases where people have doctored images in their research data, or completely fabricated data to meet a significance threshhold.

There may be ambigious cases but there are non-ambiguous cases too.

[j16sdiz]

or scientist who just don't understand statistics.

a biologist can understand how zillions of proteins interact with each other without understanding how to work with raw data.

[pvaldes]

We had to pass statistic courses in biology also.

[bluGill]

You don't need to be 100%. We assume innocent until proven guilty in other contexts. At least some criminals are known to go free because we cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt they really did it. However we get a lot of them. It isn't perfect, but it is a standard.

[auggierose]

Despite innocent until proven guilty, there are innocent people in prison or on death row. I doubt that is a standard that any scientist would agree to.

[bluGill]

Like I said, not perfect. It is overall the best I have heard of. I'm open to something better if possible.

[auggierose]

No liability.

[amatecha]

Wait, you're saying, based on your prior comment[0], that scientists who commit willful fraud shouldn't be held liable?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41329891

[tines]

Not that I'm in favor of the proposed measure, but saying because we can't identify wilful frauds 100% of the time then we can't protect the non-fraudsters, is just a bit silly, no? You have this kind of problem detecting any kind of fraud.

One test is, is there written communication between people about committing the fraud? If so, there you go.

[auggierose]

Of course, such communication cannot ever be faked by interested third parties.

[tines]

That isn't a new problem though. Should we not enforce laws against fraud because people might be framed? You determine that through investigation.

[auggierose]

I'd argue scientists have better things to do than spending their time shielding themselves from liability lawsuits.

[tines]

Again, not a new problem.

[oneshtein]

In science, 3 independent scientific organisations must reproduce the effect. Otherwise, it's not a science at all. It's just authority.