经济学人下载:学术不端 一系列的错误(下)

A bigger can?
一个更大的罐头？

By the end of 2010, Dr Potti had resigned from Duke,
到2010年底，Potti博士已经从杜克大学辞职，

the university had stopped the three trials for good,
学校永久停止了那三项临床试验，

scientists from elsewhere had claimed that Dr Potti had stolen their data for inclusion in his paper in the New England Journal,
另有科学家称Potti博士在其在新英格兰杂志发表的文章中窃取了他们的数据，

and officials at Duke had started the process of retracting three prominent papers, including the one in Nature Medicine.
杜克大学方面也开始撤回他那三篇出名的文章，《自然-医学》的那篇也包括在内。

At this point, the NCI and officials at Duke asked the Institute of Medicine, a board of experts that advises the American government, to investigate.
到了这时候，国家癌症研究所和杜克大学都请求负责向美国政府提出建议的美国医学协会对此事进行调查。

Since then, a committee of the institute, appointed for the task, has been trying to find out what was happening at Duke that allowed the problems to continue undetected for so long,
之后，协会的一个专为此事成立的委员会就一直在努力查清是什么使得杜克大学长时间对问题不管不问，

and to recommend minimum standards that must be met before this sort of work can be used to guide clinical trials in the future.
并建议在今后碰到此类可供指导临床试验的研究时，需要其达到一个最低标准。

At the committee's first meeting, in December 2010, Dr McShane stunned observers by revealing her previously unpublished investigation of the Duke work.
在2010年12月举行的该委员会的第一次会议上，McShane博士披露了此前未发表的她关于杜克大学事件的调查，

Subsequently, the committee's members interviewed Dr Baggerly about the problems he had encountered trying to sort the data.
这些材料震撼了在场的学者。结果，委员会的成员询问了Baggerly博士关于他在尝试整理那些数据时遇到的问题。

He noted that in addition to a lack of unfettered access to the computer code and consistent raw data on which the work was based,
他指出，那些急于出版Potti博士的论文的杂志不仅没有获得研究结果所涉及的计算机程序代码和可信的原始数据，

journals that had readily published Dr Potti's papers were reluctant to publish his letters critical of the work.
甚至还不情愿刊登他对于该成果质疑的文章。

Nature Medicine published one letter, with a rebuttal from the team at Duke, but rejected further comments when problems continued.
《自然-医学》杂志刊登了一篇文章，并附上了来自杜克大学研究组的辩驳，可是当问题继续存在时就拒绝了进一步的评论。

Other journals that had carried subsequent high-profile papers from Dr Potti behaved in similar ways.
其他刊载了来自Potti博士的高曝光文章的杂志也采取了相似的态度。

Eventually, the two researchers resorted to publishing their criticisms in a statistical journal, which would be unlikely to reach the same audience as a medical journal.
最后，两位研究员只好把他们的评论文章发到了一个统计杂志，这就很难被医学杂志的读者群看到了。

Two s ubsequent sessions of the committee have included Duke's point of view.
委员会接下来的两次会议都包含了杜克方面的观点。

At one of these, in March 2011, Dr Nevins admitted that some of the data in the papers had been “corrupted”.
在2011年3月的一次会议中，Nevins博士承认文章中的一些数据被“玷污”了。

He continued, though, to claim ignorance of the problems identified by Dr Baggerly and Dr Coombes until the Rhodes scandal broke,
但他声称直到Rhodes丑闻被揭发才得知Baggerly博士和Coombes博士指出的问题，

and to support the overall methods used in the papers—though he could not explain why he had not detected the problems even when alerted to anomalies.
而且虽然他没法解释为什么他没能在被指出异常时发现问题，但是他仍然在总体上支持文章中采用的方法。

At its fourth, and most recent meeting, on August 22nd, the committee questioned eight scientists and administrators from Duke.
在第四次，也就是在8月22号举行的最近一次会议上，委员会质问了8位科学家和杜克大学的管理人员。

Rob Califf, a vice-chancellor in charge of clinical research, asserted that what had happened was a case of the “Swiss-cheese effect” in which 15 different things had to go awry to let the problems slip through unheeded.
Rob Califf, 一位负责临床研究的的副校长，称该事件是一个“瑞士奶酪效应”的例子，它需要15件不同的事都出了错才有可能让问题不被察觉。

Asked by The Economist to comment on what was happening,
当被《经济学人》的记者问到他关于这件事的评价时，

he said, “As we evaluated the issues, we had the chance to review our systems and we believe we have identified, and are implementing, an improved approach.”
他说“对这些问题的评估，使得我们有机会重新审视我们的体系，而且我们相信我们已经确认并且在采取改进后的方式了。”

The university's lapses and errors included being slow to deal with potential financial conflicts of interest declared by Dr Potti,
校方的过失和错误包括在处理潜在利益冲突时反应迟缓。

Dr Nevins and other investigators, including involvement in Expression Analysis Inc and CancerGuide DX, two firms to which the university also had ties.
这些冲突方包括Potti博士和Nevins博士，其他的调查者，还有两家与大学有关系的公司Expression Analysis和CancerGuide DX。

Moreover, Dr Califf and other senior administrators acknowledged that once questions arose about the work, they gave too much weight to Dr Nevins and his judgment.
除此之外，Califf博士和其他高级管理者承认，当出现有关于研究成果的质疑时，他们过分地看重了Nevins博士和他的判断。

That led them, for example, to withhold Dr Baggerly's criticisms from the external-review committee in 2009.
这导致了2009年他们把Baggerly博士的评论挡在外部评审委员会之外。

They also noted that the internal committees responsible for protecting patients and overseeing clinical trials lacked the expertise to review the complex, statistics-heavy methods and data produced by experiments involving gene expression.
他们还提到了，负责保护病人和监督临床试验的内部委员会缺乏专业知识来评审由涉及基因表达的实验产生的复杂、侧重统计的方法和数据。

That is a theme the investigating committee has heard repeatedly.
这是一个调查委员会反复听到的说法。

The process of peer review relies on the goodwill of workers in the field, who have jobs of their own and frequently cannot spend the time needed to check other people's papers in a suitably thorough manner.
同行审查制度依靠着内行人的善意，大家都有自己的工作，所以常常不能花足够的时间来对其他人的论文进行恰当细致的检查。

Moreover, the methods sections of papers are supposed to provide enough information for others to replicate an experiment, but often do not.
而且，文章的介绍实验方法的部分本应该为其他人提供重现实验结果所需的信息，但事实经常不是这样。

Dodgy work will out eventually, as it is found not to fit in with other, more reliable discoveries.
掺假的研究结果最终会被淘汰，因为它们不能与其他更加可靠的发现相兼容。

But that all takes time and money.
但是，这些都需要时间和金钱。

The Institute of Medicine expects to complete its report, and its recommendations, in the middle of next year.
美国医学协会计划在明年年中完成这个报告和相关的建议。

In the meantime, more retractions are coming, according to Dr Califf.
在此期间，据Califf博士说将会有更多论文撤回。

The results of a misconduct investigation are expected in the next few months and legal suits from patients who believe they were recruited into clinical trials under false pretences will probably follow.
关于此次学术不端的的调查结果预计将在未来几个月内获得，而认为自己被欺诈进入临床试验的病人则可能会在之后提起诉讼。

The whole thing, then, is a mess.
整件事就是一团糟。

Who will carry the can remains to be seen.
谁将会承担责任目前还不清楚。

But the episode does serve as a timely reminder of one thing that is sometimes forgotten.
但是这一连串事件的确及时地提醒了我们一件常常被忽略的事实：

Scientists are human, too.
科学家也是人。