this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
86 points (94.8% liked)
Science
5092 readers
5 users here now
General discussions about "science" itself
Be sure to also check out these other Fediverse science communities:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There are some statistical tests and methods you can do to quite easily spot fake data from what I remember. (The name has escaped me, sorry). Ie. To check if it has come from an RNG, or if it is too positive given the sample, etc. but you are right in that it is often enough to fool the review board and get something published. Often the data is only scrutinized with these methods thoroughly after it has been published.
There was an infamous case a few years ago, which was caught because the researcher forgot to delete the fake-data-generating formula from the Excel file.