Nanoelectronics researcher fired
from the Serious-errors dept.
A prominent nanoelectronics researcher whose work has been under a cloud of suspicion for several months has been fired after investigators concluded that he falsified published experimental data. The committee formed by the researcher's employer, Bell Labs, "…concluded that Jan Hendrik Schon, 32, made up or altered data at least 16 times between 1998 and 2001…" The research involved superconductivity, molecular electronics and molecular crystals. Speaking of the tainted results that had received much attention, the committee concluded that Schon "did this intentionally or recklessly and without the knowledge of any of his co-authors." See Famed Nanotech Researcher Axed. Before the results were suspected, they were considered substantial advances in the field. See, for example, a Nanodot post of November 8, 2001.
September 29th, 2002 at 12:30 AM
A portent of things to come?
I look back at my comments, intended to be humorous, when this story first broke last year and shudder. I was just joking about how freshly scrubbed Schon and the others looked, who knew?
Given the hype surrounding nanotech, the pressure to produce results, especially in commercial and private research labs, is going to drive a lot of fraud. Schon may be the first but he won't be the last. Hopefully it won't get so bad that researchers begin to turn away from the field in fear of their reputations.
September 29th, 2002 at 12:09 PM
His reviewers/editors share the blame.
Do a quick search on your favorite journal search engine and look up Schon JH. *Nobody* can write this many research reports in that short a length of time. Look at all the Science and Nature papers the guy had. Was anyone doing a reality check on the volume of articles this guy was putting forward?
I would believe that he really could have generated all the data and written all the reports if and only if he had the entire Bell Lab staff working for him. His publication record exceeds the average academic PI's output by 5-10 times easily.
His reviewers and editors were rubber stamping his papers. There should be massive amounts of egg on the faces of all those who OK'ed his work. I believe that the top journals (Science, Nature) base their review process on Name first, content second.
Hopefully all of Schon's raises over the last few years were in his company's stock.