The Great Betrayal

Fraud permeates all types of institutions today and now the world of science, the last bastion of respect and trust, is no exception. Dozens of cases have been uncovered in the past quarter-century-and the headlines continue. We can no longer shrug off fraud in science as the work of aberrant individual scientists, Horace Freeland Judson argues. Instead, we must look for its causes and its remedies in the structures and cultures of the scientific institutions themselves. Judson carefully details all types of scientific fraud and how they happen; considers the self-government of the sciences, including peer review and the refereeing of papers; and exposes the failures of academic, governmental, and legal responses. He also shows how the movement toward Internet publication of papers promises remarkable new checks on fraud and suggests how we can restore and defend the integrity of the greatest monument of human endeavor- the sciences.

Horace Freeland Judson is the former director of the Center for History of Recent Science, which he founded at George Washington University.