Another story today of someone having faked their research.
Some months ago it was the South Korean Cloning scandal, where the lead researcher seemed to have made a huge discovery and made a major medical breakthrough, only to find the whole thing was faked.
Today it's a story about a Chinese scientist who it appears did not make the huge breakthrough that was claimed in his technology project. The article claims that the research was stolen and copied. Strong stuff.
This takes us back once again to values. You've got to stand for something and you've got to be prepared to ignore the temptations to cheat. Cheating often promises a quicker path to success but this kind of success never lasts.
Why do people continue to do this? It must be something to do with the rewards nowadays being potentially so much greater. In this case the scientist stood to gain huge research funding, increased prestige and a whole bunch of state perks.
You see the same thing with athletes, businessmen, politicians.
The lure of a brown envelope stuffed with cash is so great.
If you follow sport you'll find the story here to be amazing and amusing, especially given the hysteria that followed the exit of the Italians from the last Football world cup.
Cheating and faking is small-time. Still the line forms for ever more willing participants in the game of "no one will ever find out". They always find out and cheats always get caught.
1 comment:
and it's actually quite sad when it happens. Everyone is cheated, especially those people who were decent to the cheater and who gave her the benefit of the doubt and showed the "unconditional positive regard" that PD talks about.
It just means you have to work hard not to start making attributions about groups of people because of the actions of one person. This is where this stuff can do real damage. People do this stuff as individuals trying to get ahead faster than others who are willing to stick to their own sense of ethics and integrity.
Very sad.
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