not only are layman's concerns dismissed (it's so ubiquitous, i'm not sure where to start), even those in the science "club" are dismissed by the lead scientists on a particular project. this is from a recent issue of the Journal Nature and it's the last sentence of this excerpt that's most amazing to me:
"Integrity starts with the health of research groups Funders should force universities to support laboratories’ research health.
from Journal Nature
Last month, the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a report called Fostering Integrity in Research. Later this month, the 5th World Conference on Research Integrity will be held in Amsterdam. Over the years, universities have followed some funders’ mandates to improve the prevention and investigation of misconduct. Many discussions have been held about unreliable research.
None of these initiatives pays sufficient attention to a specific issue: the research health of research groups and the people who lead them. This includes technical robustness of lab practices, assurance of ethical integrity and the psychological health and well-being of group members. Principal investigators (PIs), the linchpins of the scientific process and of integrity, are under ever-increasing pressures from many sources.
The cultures of departments and institutions may be influential. Last month’s report draws attention to survey-based tools that can assess the health of an organization’s research culture (such as that at go.nature.com/2p3fjed). But it would be more to the point to assess the health of research groups, which has much greater influence on trainees.
For example, how, if at all, are group members’ data scrutinized by other members or the PI, perhaps by spot-checking? To what extent does a PI ensure that a graduate student or postdoc with a strong research claim is not deceiving themselves? In 2008, a study of case files concerning trainees found guilty of misconduct concluded that nearly three-quarters of the trainees’ mentors had not directly reviewed source data (D. E. Wright et al. Sci. Eng. Ethics 14, 323–336; 2008). What bandwidth does the PI have for such oversight?
Then there is a PI’s approach to other essential aspects of research. For example, do group members get experience of peer review and grant applications? Is such training neglected, or are trainees so burdened with it that their own research is compromised?
And in relation to psychological well-being, to what extent do group members perceive themselves to be treated fairly, in good times or bad? At least three organizations — Future of Research, Rescuing Biomedical Research and the Global Young Academy — have sprung up in the past decade to advocate for early-career researchers, suggesting that trainees do not feel they are receiving just treatment. In 2013, an anonymous survey at one institution found that almost one-third of trainees felt pressure to back a mentor’s research hypothesis even when data did not support it, and that nearly half knew of mentors who required trainees to have a high-impact publication before leaving the lab."
i was once told by a doctor that if cranberry juice was helping me with a UTI, that it was just in my head as there's no proof it helps. turns out he had just read a journal article about cranberry juice that he parroted and that over the next 5 years, this misinformation was reversed by MANY other journal articles. my point is, the doctor felt perfectly fine encouraging me to think i was crazy or stupid just to uphold what he percieved as the PROPER structure of authority (of which i had none). this behavior is EVERYWHERE.