Adam Retchless, Ph. D.

Previously, I griped about the business practices of Research Gate and swore that I would not participate in their community.

Like many online communities, RG sends out plenty of spam, but this is particularly annoying spam — the “from” lines shows the names of colleagues on Research Gate who have attempted to create links to me on RG. In contrast, LinkedIn clearly identifies itself when sending updates and connection requests. Since I have a LinkedIn account (which controls the frequency of these emails), those emails aren’t even spam.

So, if you participate in Research Gate, that company will use your name to spam your colleagues. Classy.

From The Scientist:

In a detailed final report about the fraud committed by Dutch researcher Diederik Stapel, three separate investigative panels have heaped further criticism onto the field of social psychology in general. The investigators found that “from the bottom to the top there was a general neglect of fundamental scientific standards and methodological requirements”—a situation that allowed Stapel’s fraud to continue for years.

I’ve placed that report on my reading list — both for the analysis of institutional failing and the statistical methods that were used to identify fraud.