诚信制度之危

诚信制度之危[Dishonoring the Honor System
cientific review is not designed to catch cheats. But the South Korean cloning scandal suggests that the journals Nature and Science may be too powerful in deciding what research reaches the public.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
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科学评审的本意并非是要抓骗子。

然而，韩国克隆丑闻说明，在决定将哪些科研成果公诸于众方面，《自然》和《科学》杂志或许有些过于强大了。

Jan Hendrik Schon's success seemed too good to be true, and it was. In only four years as a physicist at Bell Laboratories, Schon, 32, had co-authored 90 scientific papers—one every 16 days—detailing new discoveries in superconductivity, lasers, nanotechnology and quantum physics. This output astonished his colleagues, and made them suspicious. When one co-worker noticed that the same table of data appeared in two separate papers—which also happened to appear in the two most prestigious scientific journals in the world, Science and Nature-the jig was up. In October 2002, a Bell Labs investigation found that Schon had falsified and fabricated data. His career as a scientist was finished.
If it sounds a lot like the fall of Hwang Woo Suk—the South Korean researcher who fabricated his evidence about cloning human cells—it is. Scientific scandals, which are as old as science itself, tend to follow similar patterns of hubris and comeuppance. Afterwards, colleagues wring their hands and wonder how such malfeasance can be avoided in the future. But it never is entirely. Science is built on the honor system; the method of peer-review, in which manuscripts are evaluated by experts in the field, is not meant to catch cheats. In recent years, of course, the pressure on scientists to publish in the top journals has increased, making the journals that much more crucial to career success. The questions raised anew by Hwang's fall are whether Nature and Scienc e have become too powerful as arbiters of what science reaches the public, and whether the journals are up to their task as gatekeepers.
Each scientific specialty has its own set of journals. Physicists have Physical Review Letters, cell biologists have Cell, neuroscientists have Neuron, and so forth. Science and Nature, though, are the only two major journals that cover the gamut of scientific disciplines, from meteorology and zoology to quantum physics and chemistry. As a result, journalists look to them each week for the cream of the crop of new science papers. And scientists look to the journals in part to reach journalists. Why do they care? Competition for grants has gotten so fierce that scientists have sought popular renown to gain an edge
over their rivals. Publication in specialized journals will win the accolades of academics and satisfy the publish-or-perish imperative, but Science and Nature come with the added bonus of potentially getting your paper written up in The New York Times and other publications.
Scientists are also trying to reach other scientists through Science and Nature, not just the public. The line between popular and professional notoriety is not distinct. Scientists tend to pay more attention to the Big Two than to other journals. When more scientists know about a particular paper, they're more apt to cite it in their own papers. Being oft-cited will increase a scientist's "Impact Factor", a measure of how often papers are cited by peers. Funding agencies use the Impact Factor as a rough measure of the influence of scientists they're considering supporting. Because Nature and Science papers have more visibility, the number of submissions is growing, say the editors. Nature now gets 10,000 manuscripts a year, and that figure is rising, says editor-in-chief Phiip Campbell via email. "This partly reflects the increase in scientific activity around the world," he says. "It also no doubt reflects the increasing and sometimes excessive emphasis amongst funding agencies and governments on publication measures, such as the typical rates of citation of journals."
Whatever the reasons, the whims of the editors at Science and Nature loom large for many scientists. When either magazine is considering a paper for publication, the authors are told not to speak to the press lest they want to risk rejection. "Every scientists hates them and loves them," says a prominent scientist who would not speak for attribution for fear of offending the editors. "We hate them because it's so political to get an article in them. Frankly I'm astonished at some of the things they accept, and some of the things they reject."
Whether the clamor to appear in these journals has any bearing on their ability to catch fraud is another matter. The fact is, fraud is terrifically hard to spot. Consider the process Science used to evaluate Hwang's 2005 article. Science editors recognized the manuscript's import almost as soon as it arrived. As part of the standard procedure, they sent it to two members of its Board of Reviewing Editors, who recommended that it go out for peer review (about 30 percent of manuscripts pass this test). This recommendation was made not on the scientific validity of the paper, but on its "novelty, originality, and trendiness," says Denis Duboule, a geneticist at the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />University of Geneva and a member of Science's Board of Reviewing Editors, in the January 6 issue of Science. (Editors would not comment for this story ahead of the completion of Seoul National University's investigation, which was released today. The panel found that Hwang had fabricated all of the evidence
for research that claimed to have cloned human cells, but that he had successfully cloned the dog Snuppy.)
After this, Science sent the paper to three stem-cell experts, who had a week to look it over. Their comments were favorable. How were they to know that the data was fraudulent? "You look at the data and do not assume it's fraud," says one reviewer, anonymously, in Science. At a December news conference, editor-in-chief Donald Kennedy maintained that the paper, despite its importance, was not rushed to print. "Any important paper gets careful scrutiny, and I think our peer reviewers gave it that," he said. "It's very difficult for a peer-review process to detect mistakes that are not clearly evident or are deliberate misrepresentations."
In the end, a big scandal now and then isn't likely to do much damage to the big scientific journals. What editors and scientists worry about more are the myriad smaller infractions that occur all the time, and which are almost impossible to detect. A Nature survey of scientists published last June found that one-third of all respondents had committed some forms of misconduct. These included falsifying research data and having "questionable relationships" with students and subjects—both charges leveled against Hwang. Nobody really knows if this kind of fraud is on the rise, but it is worrying.
Science editors don't have any plans to change the basic editorial peer-review process as a result of the Hwang scandal. They do have plants to scrutinize photographs more closely in an effort to spot instances of fraud, but that policy change had already been decided when the scandal struck. And even if it had been in place, it would not have revealed that Hwang had misrepresented photographs from two stem cell colonies as coming from 11 colonies. (Nature's Campbell would not answer questions about review policy or the status of Hwang's 2005 Nature paper on the cloning of Snuppy the dog, which Nature is investigating.) With the financial and deadline pressures of the publishing industry, it's unlikely that the journals are going to take markedly stronger measures to vet manuscripts. Beyond replicating the experiments themselves, which would be impractical, it's difficult to see what they could do to make take science beyond the honor system. ■
简·亨德里克·舍恩的成功似乎令人难以置信，但它的确如此。

３２岁的舍恩曾是贝尔实验室的物理学家，在短短４年间，他却与人合作撰写了９０篇科技论文——每１６天一篇——这些论文详尽阐述了他在超导、激光、纳米技术和量子物理学方面的最新发现。

如此多产令他的同事大为惊讶并产生怀疑。

当一位同事发现同一个数据图表出现在两篇不同的论文之中——而且恰恰分别出现在世界上两家最为知名的科学期刊《科学》与《自然》杂志上时——把戏被拆穿了。

２００２年１０月，贝尔实验室
调查发现，舍恩曾篡改并捏造数据。

他的科学家生涯就此止步。

如果此事听起来很像是黄禹锡的名誉扫地一事，那么事实的确如此。

这位韩国研究者在克隆人体细胞上伪造了证据。

科学丑闻与科学本身的发展亦步亦趋，并且往往遵循着类似的规律，即自以为是必然会受到惩罚。

丑闻曝光之后，同行们都在痛定思痛，思考今后怎样才能避免此类事件的发生。

但是，要完全避免绝不可能。

《科学》杂志是建立在诚信制度之上的；同行评审的办法，即由同一领域专家对论文原稿进行评审的方法，并非旨在抓骗子。

当然，近年来要求科技工作者在顶级期刊上发表论文的压力越来越大，使得这些期刊在他们事业成功上所起的作用越来越关键。

黄禹锡事件让这些问题再次浮出水面：《自然》和《科学》在决定将哪些科研结果公诸于众方面的权力是不是太大了，这些刊物是否能够胜任其守门人的工作。

每个科学专业领域都有自己的一系列刊物。

物理学家有《物理评论快报》，细胞生物学家有《细胞》，神经科学家有《神经元》，等等。

但是，《科学》和《自然》是仅有的两家覆盖全部科学学科的主要刊物，学科范围从气象学和动物学到量子物理学和化学等。

因此，媒体记者每周都关注这两家期刊，以便在林林总总的新科学论文中觅取精华。

在某种程度上，科学工作者也期望通过这两家期刊为新闻界所获知。

他们为何如此在意呢？因为科研经费的竞争异常激烈，要想比对手略胜一筹，科学工作者就需要寻求大众知名度。

在专业期刊上发表论文可以赢得学术界的赞誉，也可以满足“不发表就完蛋”的迫切需要。

但是，在《科学》和《自然》杂志上发表论文还会带来不期之喜，那就是，你在上面发表的论文可能会被《纽约时报》及其他报刊所报道。

科学工作者不但希望通过《科学》和《自然》杂志成为知名人士，而且还希望为其他科学工作者所了解。

公众领域与职业领域内的声名狼藉两者之间的界线并不分明。

科学工作者对期刊“两巨头”的关注往往多于其他期刊。

如果某篇论文为更多科学工作者所了解，他们在自己论文中引用它的可能性就更大。

被经常引用会增加科学工作者的“影响因子”，而这是衡量论文被同行引用次数的一个尺度。

资助机构用“影响因子”来粗略衡量他们考虑资助的科学工作者的影响力。

两家杂志的编辑称，因为《自然》和《科学》杂志受注目的程度更高，提交给它们的论文数量与日俱增。

目前《自然》杂志每年收到１万份稿件，且这个数字还在增长，该杂志主编菲利普·坎贝尔通过电子邮件表示。

“这一方面反映了全世界科学活动的增加，”他说，“同时无疑也反映了资助机构和政府日益强调甚而有时过分地强调论文在发表方面的标准，如各期刊的平常引用率。

”
无论原因如何，对许多科学工作者来说，《科学》和《自然》杂志的编辑们一时心血来潮就让人诚惶诚恐。

无论哪家杂志在考虑发表某篇论文的时候，都会告知作者不要将消息透漏给媒体，除非他们不怕退稿。

“每个科学工作者都对它们爱恨交加，”一位担心得罪杂志编辑而不愿透露自己身份的著名科学家说道。

“我们恨它们是因为在这
些杂志上发表论文太过于倚重人际关系。

说实话，对他们接受和退掉的一些稿件我都感到很吃惊。

”
人们拼命想在这些杂志上露面是否会影响到杂志的打假能力是另一码事。

事实上，要发现造假极为困难。

我们来看看《科学》杂志评估黄禹锡２００５年发表的那篇论文的过程吧。

《科学》杂志的编辑几乎一收到稿件就意识到了它的重要性。

按照标准程序，他们将稿件发给编审委员会的两位成员，这两位成员又推荐将其送交同行评审（大约有３０％的稿件通过这一检验）。

他们进行推荐的依据不是论文的科学正确性，而是其“新颖性、独创性和时新性”，丹尼斯·迪布莱在１月６日出版的《科学》杂志中称。

丹尼斯·迪布莱是日内瓦大学的遗传学家，也是《科学》杂志编审委员会成员。

（在首尔国立大学的调查结束之前，编辑们不愿对此报道作出评论，而调查结果已于今日公布。

调查委员会发现，黄禹锡声称克隆出人类细胞的所有研究证据均属伪造，不过他确实曾经成功地克隆出一只名叫“史纳比”的狗。

）
在此之后，《科学》杂志又将该论文发给三位干细胞研究专家，他们用了一个星期时间对其进行审查，所做出的评语都是肯定的。

他们怎么会知道数据造假了呢？“在看数据的时候，你不会认为它是假的，”《科学》杂志的一位匿名的评审者称。

在１２月举行的一次记者招待会上，主编唐纳德·肯尼迪坚称这篇论文尽管很重要，但并没有急于刊载。

“任何重要论文都要进行详细审查，我认为我们的评审专家做到了这一点，”他说，“要在同行评审过程中察觉并不明显的错误或者故意造假非常困难。

”
说来说去，偶尔出现的大丑闻不可能对这些科技大刊造成多大损害。

让编辑和科学工作者更为忧心的是不时出现的各种小问题，这些小问题几乎难以发现。

发表于去年６月《自然》杂志上的一项对科学工作者的问卷调查显示，所有回答调查问卷的人中，三分之一有过某种形式的不当行为，其中包括伪造研究数据以及与学生和实验对象有着“可疑关系”——二者都是针对黄禹锡的谴责。

虽然目前无人知晓这种造假行为是否呈上升趋势，但这的确令人忧虑。

《科学》杂志的编辑并未因黄禹锡丑闻而打算改变同行评审这一基本编辑过程。

不过，他们确实计划对照片进行更加仔细的审查，以便发现造假的情况，但在丑闻曝光之前，他们就已经决定进行这种制度上的改变了。

即便当时已经作出制度上的改变，黄禹锡所伪造的照片也不会被发现。

他所展示的照片号称来自１１个干细胞系，但实际上只来自两个。

（《自然》杂志的坎贝尔不愿回答有关评审制度或者黄禹锡２００５年发表在《自然》杂志上有关克隆狗“史纳比”的论文的问题，《自然》杂志正在对后者展开调查。

）由于出版业有财政和时间限制的双重压力，让各期刊采取更加强有力的措施来审稿是不可能的。

除非它们自己重新做一次实验——而这是不切实际的——要是科学脱离了诚信制度，它们也是无计可施。

（贾磊译自Newsweek Jan. 10, 2006）。