Not that anyone would care but...

[cashew]

I've known about this Photoshop problem in research since grad school.

Yes, it is one of the contributing factors to my depression. It is as bad as the article says. And I feel like this is going to get lost in all the anger about fake data, but seriously, WHY THE FUCK IS REPLICATION NOT GIVEN ANY ATTENTION in scientific publishing?

One of the worst things to learn when doing science was that the ideal of repeatable experiments is literally not a thing. Like, you know how in school we're taught that one big difference between science and everything else is that in science, repeatability is the ultimate test of the hypothesis? Well, that's not how science works in the real world, because if you merely reproduce a result, good luck getting into any publication. If you fail to get a result, good luck getting any attention, let alone published.

Failure to get results is punished by the current scientific research environment. No fucking wonder everyone is killing themselves getting a result, even though we all know success is much less likely than failure. A huge part of the scientific method is about failing repeatedly until you hit on the truth, and yet, the way we actually practice science is anything but.

Ugh. I'm...going to go eat some ice cream and bury my sorrows.