This article really got to me. Basically, an Ohio State prof has been accused multiple times of faked scholarship, and nobody cares. He publishes extensively and brings in loads of money.
As a grad student in engineering (not bio engineering), I certainly heard of that special lab hidden away where the laws of physics don’t apply. You walk in balls are floating in the air. A researcher is set up and busily working upside down on the ceiling. In others words, researchers cheat.
Most of the journals that get published in aren’t the same quality as science, so there isn’t major scrutiny. I’ve certainly heard stories and very specific instances where questionable results get published.
Like in this article, I’ve hear of senior profs taking patents from students of junior faculty too.
I even think some very senior profs have slowed down on the publishing in the last 5 years, so they aren’t the ones featured in this nytimes article.
One of the things that infuriated me about that article is he threw his junior researchers under the bus!
This is especially egregious given that it was a junior colleague’s grant proposal he allegedly plagiarized. (I’m betting that junior colleague’s “circuitous explanation” was him trying to cover up Croce’s bad behavior, since Croce likely had the power to tank his career. Academia is a small world that relies on networks and word-of-mouth.)