Academics is a funny business - because so much of it is about trust and character.
Trust and character are important because we assess each other’s work & generally believe that authors have given a faithful, honest account of what they have done & what they have found.
When a paper is accepted for presentation or publication, an editorial team takes a leap of faith that the analysis is accurately reported & there is no funny business.
This trust-based system is an anachronism - from a time when manuscripts were mailed out for peer review - & from a time where it was challenging to verify analysis - bc data was difficult to transport and analysis even more difficult to replicate.
In the past 15 years, we have seen trust-based peer review in academe erode for social and practical reasons.
Socially, there is much cognitive dissonance in academic circles. We are trained to think in terms of normal distributions and productivity- and become suspicious when outliers on productivity surface. The reality, I suspect, is that productivity is a power distribution - with many good people and far more outliers than a normal distribution would suggest.
This has given rise to a suspicion of very productive that has been compounded by visible cases of people caught cheating or publishing poorly designed work - give retraction watch a look if you are curious.
Practically, it is now easier than ever before to ask for data, protocols, and scripts to verify the analysis.
It has made replication much more possible than just 20 years ago when I started my career.
As a result, we are seeing a trust but verify culture develop - where authors are trusted through the peer review process & results are verified when it comes time to publish.
So against this backdrop, what are forgivable and unforgivable mistakes in academe?
What is forgivable? Almost anything socially or to do with the business side of uni’s.
I have seen professors forgiven for cheating on spouses, financial mismanagement, squandering money & even pushing Ph.D. students too hard.
I'm aware that only one Dean ever has been sent to jail for lying.
For whatever reason, academics seem to acknowledge that we are not very good managers nor judges of character.
Apologize, retreat to your office, & most things are forgotten at your current or next job.
What is I not forgivable?
You can not cook data. You can not lie about results. You can not plagiarize.
Research misconduct will not be forgotten & will end your career.
Also, you can not pull strings or call in favors to publish.
If you are caught, and you usually will eventually be caught, your reputation will be ruined.
Finally, we no longer tolerate treating women, disadvantaged populations, young faculty, or students badly.
Don’t do it. It’s not worth it.
Remember - academics is a long game - run a clean shop & you will stay in the game for many years to come.
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