Trusting the Research

I quote a lot of scientific research, a LOT.  So, I wanted to acknowledge a problem that was brought to my attention by a fellow TEDster about fraud in science research.  The website that was originally brought to my attention was this one:

http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/owner-of-science-fraud-site-suspended-for-legal-threats-identifies-himself-talks-about-next-steps/

But Forbes.com picked the story up also and supported it with an article from "Nature". It is obviously a huge problem. 

"Fraud, plagiarism, cherry-picked results, poor or non-existent controls, confirmation bias, opaque, missing, or unavailable data, and stonewalling when questioned have gone from being rare to being everyday occurrences. Just look at the soaring retraction level across multiple scientific publications and the increasingly vocal hand wringing of science vigilantes. Hardly a prestigious university or large pharmaceutical company is immune, with the likes of Harvard, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, Ohio State, University of Kentucky, and the University of Maryland recently fingered byRetraction Watch."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2013/01/09/a-barrage-of-legal-threats-shuts-down-whistleblower-site-science-fraud/

"A surge in withdrawn papers is highlighting weaknesses in the system for handling them."
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111005/full/478026a.html 

A third related story puts an interesting twist on it. 
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/01/22/study-indicates-that-scientific-fraud-may-have-a-male-bias/
"The data seem suggest a certain laxity in behavior that might accompany tenure and a stable academic job. At the same time the findings may again illuminate the intense pressure and battles for funding that often tempt academic scientists to stray from the righteous path. Ultimately, studies like this may put the spotlight more on the dysfunctional aspects of our current academic research system rather than simply on gender bias."

This was what I found note worthy:
"What was also interesting was that the misconduct depended on the rank of the researcher; it seems that 88% of faculty members committing fraud were men, compared to 69% of postdocs and 58% of students."