A mid-summer reminder from UD that research fraud – whopping big research fraud – is a year-round phenom at American universities. Two representative cases that have recently hit (re-hit; these stories have been kicking around for years) the news come from med and business schools, the two great incubators of research fraud. (Engineering schools do financial fraud, as in professors taking grant money and setting up secret businesses into which they divert said grant money.) (And let’s not forget psychology and sociology – two departments with extremely impressive histories of fraud, if not as impressive as med and biz schools, and with less capacity to inflict serious damage on humanity.)

UD reported on Bentley University’s James Hunton this time last year; he’d been fired from Bentley back in 2012, when the school managed to overcome Hunton’s total refusal to cooperate with their investigation of one made-up research paper (the number of such papers has risen to 31) to can his ass. (Subject of Hunton’s research: fraud.)

The Washington Post provides an update:

One of the nation’s premier academic journals of accounting has retracted 25 articles co-authored by a once-renowned professor who specialized in corporate ethics but was later accused of “fabricating” data.

The American Association of Accounting, which publishes the Accounting Review, issued the retractions last week based on a “pattern of misconduct” by James E. Hunton, who resigned from his position at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., a business school with nearly 6,000 graduate and undergraduate students.

The hunt’s on for Hunton:

Hunton has made no public comment on the allegations against him. Neither The Post nor Retraction Watch has been able to locate him now or last year when The Post, the Boston Globe and other news outlets wrote about the results of Bentley’s investigation of Hunton.

For a guy like Hunton, who had the balls to make up vast swathes of accounting firm employees across the globe, to pretend to interview them, to create copious data about them, and to write it all up in probably hundreds of academic papers, the business of dropping out and changing his identity was probably a cinch. No doubt he’s living in Jamaica, having dyed his hair red, had facial surgery, and stolen the identity of some poor student he had twenty years ago. You ain’t gonna find Hunton.

Dong-Pyou Han not so much.

Dong-Pyou Han pleaded guilty in February to faking results in AIDS-vaccine experiments. Prosecutors say his actions led federal administrators to award an extra $7 million to $20 million in grants for the research, and they want him to serve prison time for his actions… [F]ederal research administrators were “flabbergasted” by the supposed success of [Han’s] experimental vaccine, which led them to increase the project’s financing. [Han’s fraud led his] research team to focus on the specific vaccine, when they could have been looking into more promising areas.

Faking results in the great pandemic of our time. Stand-up guy.

Anyway. Terrific blogs like Retraction Watch couldn’t exist without the steady stream of research fraud coming not just from the States, of course, but from all over the world.

From Prague Daily Monitor:

Two renowned Czech university teachers and scholars in the field of psychology, Jiri Hoskovec and Jiri Stikar, have confessed to plagiarism they committed two years ago, the daily Pravo reports Thursday.

They apologised on the web page of the Charles University publisher’s for having passed a scientific text written by another author off as their own in their joint book Safe Mobility at the Old Age from 2007, the paper adds.

In their book, which is to be used in university courses as well as by researchers and general public, both authors included almost word-for-word excerpts from Psychology for Drivers written by Karel Havlik without citing the source, Pravo writes…

There won’t be any punishment. The press only responded when Havlik threatened to go to court.

We focus, at University Diaries, on the notoriously stinky field of psychology; what a comfort to know that dangerous fraud runs rampant in many fields of scientific research.

Via her reader, Seelye, UD learns of the latest iteration of way-bogus psychology scholarship.

She’s named Francesca Giro and she has a really cool website.

We’re all looking for easy steps to a better brighter you, and Happiness + Efficiency experts oblige us with studies showing that, like, thinking of eating meat makes you more boorish and less social. (I read this particular result, from world-famous Diederik Stapel, to Mr UD, who laughed merrily.) H+E experts (Dan Ariely – a co-author of Francesca Giro’s! – Marc Hauser – who shares with Giro the Harvard affiliation – Jens Förster, etc.) are always flooring us with amazing whodathunkits, and we fall for this shit every single time cuz it comes out of Harvard or cuz we just want to believe it or because we’re thrilled by the weird.

But Uri Simonsohn (a name known to readers of this blog) doesn’t fall for it. At all. He finds discipline-destroying lies enraging, and sets about, with a couple of colleagues, to keep the field reasonably clean through exposure of research fraud. The miscreants make stuff up and manipulate numbers in order to keep generating attention-grabbing amazements and giving amazing TED talks re: the amazements and Uri’s right behind them, running the numbers.

How can we protect ourselves from marauding high-profile psych frauds?

Step One: If something sounds bogus, it’s probably bogus.

Beset by accusations of research fraud, Duke professor and public intellectual Dan Ariely has held his ground, admitting a bit of sloppiness but nothing like making up data. Yet an analysis of details in a 2012 paper he wrote about honesty (!) suggests that he may well be responsible for bogus numbers in one of his influential psychological experiments.

And this is not the first time questions have been raised about Ariely’s research in particular. In a famous 2008 study, he claimed that prompting people to recall the Ten Commandments before a test cuts down on cheating, but an outside team later failed to replicate the effect. An editor’s note was added to a 2004 study of his last month when other researchers raised concerns about statistical discrepancies, and Ariely did not have the original data to cross-check against. And in 2010, Ariely told NPR that dentists often disagree on whether X-rays show a cavity, citing Delta Dental insurance as his source. He later walked back that claim when the company said it could not have shared that information with him because it did not collect it.

Ariely is also up against his field’s now-notorious “replication crisis” — a nice way of saying that SCADS of psychological experimental results sure look a whole lot like bullshit. Go here for details.

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A photograph in this article features Ariely hanging with Jonah Lehrer at a 2008 science festival. Much like Ariely, Lehrer was a much-celebrated brainiac with frenetic entrepreneurial energy until he went pffff.

Jonah Lehrer’s 2012 book Imagine: How Creativity Works was pulled from shelves after it was demonstrated to contain fabricated quotes purportedly from Bob Dylan and WH Auden. He subsequently admitted to plagiarising the work of others in his blogposts, while critics noted apparent plagiarism and disregard for facts throughout his published work.

UD’s got nothing against operators. America is Land O’ Operators. He’s an operator/He’s a real player, as Fountains of Wayne puts it, and we got ’em growing on trees around here. But don’t believe anything they tell you.

Her anger at cancer personality bs featured prominently in her book Illness as Metaphor.

UD also remembers wondering why such obviously implausible notions continue to be taken seriously. This might even have been the beginning of UD‘s education in the sketchy field of research in psychology (this blog has over the years covered a zillion stories of disgraced high-profile psychologists, like Marc Hauser and Diederik Stapel).

Finally we seem to have the definitive trashing of the cancer personality. About time.

… is the mantra of many an academic scammer, as in the case of Ireland’s Fergus Heffernan, a floridly compulsive liar with a thriving business as a lecturer on mental health.

Like a lot of degree frauds, Fergus seems to have decided somewhere way back that having issued himself a PhD, he might as well manufacture an array of further achievements.

[H]is doctoral qualification in psychology is fake …

[An] investigation also revealed he had falsely claimed to be a visiting professor at a number of top international universities, and that his claim to have served with the Irish Defence Forces in Lebanon in 1976 was untrue — as there was no conflict in Lebanon until 1978.

In response to these discrepancies, he said he used the wrong terminology and that he was a “visiting lecturer”.

He also claimed that he was in fact in Lebanon in 1978.

… [He] claimed to be a visiting professor at Trinity College Dublin, Boston University, and Columbia University in New York.

All three institutions have ­confirmed they have no record of any employment or affiliation with Mr Heffernan.

A squalid stream of vice does nicely to describe the now-released details of Harvard’s Marc Hauser, one of a number of naughty psychologists whose misdeeds keep hitting the newspapers.

It’s rather heartbreaking to read this email exchange, revealing as it does what happens when a person of integrity blunders into the lab of a powerful, crooked scientist.

In 2007, a member of the laboratory wanted to recode an experiment involving rhesus monkey behavior, due to “inconsistencies” in the coding.

“I am getting a bit pissed here. There were no inconsistencies!” Hauser responded, explaining how an analysis was done.

Later that day, the person resigned from the lab. “It has been increasingly clear for a long time now that my interests have been diverging sharply from what the lab does, and it seems like an increasingly inappropriate and uncomfortable place for me,” the person wrote.

This of course is the way in which dirty labs get dirtier and dirtier. Legitimate people leave, and even schools as burnished as Harvard find themselves harboring high-profile fraud.

… is, if you ask UD, pretty much the formula for some of what goes on under what people at universities call Leadership Studies.

Florida International University, famous for an onfield football brawl, squalid sports teams, and an arrogant high-living president who, when he retired, had a whole campus named after him as an expression of gratitude for what he did with public funds, has put together a real winner of a leadership studies program. Said president – Mitch Maidique – is on the faculty, as is Fred Walumbwa, whose pearls of leadership wisdom (“Always be on the path to leadership…”) adorn the page announcing his appointment.

Walumbwa was only hired last year, and already he’s leading FIU in (about to be) retracted research papers. Five – in one journal, Leadership Quarterly. The editor writes:

In recent weeks serious allegations have been raised about the scientific value and contribution of a number of papers published in recent years in our discipline, five of which were articles published in LQ.

It’s not clear exactly what Walumbwa and his co-authors did wrong, though one would have to suspect they fudged data. Mushy fields like psychology (leadership studies’ sister city) are notorious for retractions – here’s looking at you, Diederik Stapel — and Marc Hauser — etc. — …

Hank Campbell headlines his post about Walumbwa this way:

When Something As Vague As A Leadership Journal Retracts You For Lack Of Data, You Are In Trouble

He goes on to say:

A journal that published papers on something called ‘ethical leadership’ wouldn’t seem to need any strong evidence basis, just a lot of surveys and weak observational claims with pretty words attached, so if it gets so many complaints it retracts five of your papers, you must really be out there.

… Walumbwa told RetractionWatch “We have data, we are working on that now.”

Oh. If you have data, why wasn’t it in the papers? And how did it get published in the first place?

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UD thanks David.

In recent years, psychologists have reported a raft of findings on race biases, brain imaging and even extrasensory perception that have not stood up to scrutiny.

… In a survey of more than 2,000 American psychologists scheduled to be published this year, Leslie John of Harvard Business School and two colleagues found that 70 percent had acknowledged, anonymously, to cutting some corners in reporting data. About a third said they had reported an unexpected finding as predicted from the start, and about 1 percent admitted to falsifying data.

The ruler of this universe seems to be ex-Harvard psychology professor Marc Hauser (scroll down), and his long slow downfall is certainly instructive; but really where is the American Psychological Association? UD gathers the APA is the official organization here… UD fears the APA has, at the very least, co-dependency and enabling issues.

A far more healthy research model is the open rollicking naughtiness of the American Psychiatric Association, with its Schatzbergs and Nemeroffs and Biedermans and all. The first APA is getting all weepy and neurotic; the second hums happily along.

… Hauser immediately after the sanctioning of Harvard’s Joseph Biederman, it’s time to pause and think about the striking number of very high-powered faculty there who over the last few years have been under a cloud, or disgraced or, like Hauser, forced out. What’s it mean?

Keep in mind, first, that simply by virtue of happening at Harvard, faculty news gets a lot of attention. For all we know, multiple high-ranking faculty at Clemson have been punished or forced out for research misconduct, conflict of interest and failure to report massive income, conspiracy to defraud, failure to register as a lobbyist, plagiarism, etc. But we don’t pay attention to Clemson; we pay attention to Harvard.

Still, whatever the numbers, it’s pretty amazing that during the course of this blog I’ve followed endless stories of the most high-powered professors in the world — high-powered Harvard professors — doing bad things.

Most of these stories involve what I’d call crimes of grandiosity. Not opportunity; grandiosity. You work your way to the top legitimately; then, at the top, the same cleverness and ego and competitiveness and sense of invulnerability and restless insistence on more that got you to the top tips you in the direction of recklessness.

To be sure, some of these cases are boringly about personal greed (Biederman and Shleifer in particular); but all of them involve as well a significant element of empire-building, power-mongering, and arrogance. Many involve people who, bizarrely, don’t need to break rules in order to maintain their position of prominence in the culture. They break them anyway. So say also that there’s some operation of pleasure at work here; that these particular personalities have been drawn to the rarified, high-energy setting of Harvard because there’s visceral gratification to be had by scoring repeatedly and scoring big.

Steven Feldman, the pretend psychologist hired — because he was the cheapest person available –by the family courts of Saratoga New York, hurt a lot of people. A diploma mill bullshitter, he determined the fate of many children and parents in that community in his capacity as expert advisor to judges.

At this point it is uncertain what effect it could have on Posporelis v. Posporelis [On Feldman’s recommendation, the court took shared custody away from the father in this case. Feldman wrote that the father had a personality disorder.] should Steven Feldman be found guilty of the charges against him. However, my sources tell me that there are numerous divorce, custody and other cases in Saratoga County in which Dr. Steven Feldman was involved and the potential fallout, should he be found guilty, is significant.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish, eh? Didn’t check his credentials, only went for him because he was cheap… And now look.

Background here.

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Oh. Here’s another one.

A Houston man who falsely claimed a doctorate in psychology but who’d purchased a degree online pleaded guilty today to receiving nearly $1 million from Medicare and Medicaid for phony behavioral counseling.

Edward Birts, 51, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud, health care fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to a written statement from U.S. Attorney José Angel Moreno.

Birts operated a behavioral counseling company called Courage to Change. He’d awarded himself bogus professional certifications in counseling, according to prosecutors. His plea agreement with the government said he billed the two government programs for $1.2 million for nonexistent psychological treatments and received more than $968,500 in payments.

Birts acquired beneficiaries’ names, addresses and account numbers which he would use to file false claims. Prosecutors said he claimed he employed a nonexistent doctor who ran nonexistent group therapy sessions…

He’s a psychologist; his wife isn’t, but she plays one for the purposes of grand larceny.

He teaches Psychology of Personality at the Rochester Institute of Technology, but his main source of income is “allowing unqualified staff, including Esta Miran [she has an education degree], to perform therapy sessions, charging for longer sessions than were actually performed and billing for group therapy sessions when records show individual therapy sessions were occurring at that time.”

Along with grand larceny, they’re facing “scheme to defraud in the first degree, falsifying business records in the first degree, offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree and unauthorized practice.”  They seem to have ripped Medicaid and Medicare off for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This should be a fun one to watch.  The State Attorney General knows how to pick them.  “Two married doctors are in jail Tuesday,” begins one local report, “accused of stealing close to $250,000 dollars.  Neither of them would stop talking in court.”  The roguish Mirons seem to have decided that the best way to evade their fate (about a decade in jail for both of them) is to pretend to be very old and very stupid.  They nattered on during their arraignment, claiming to be confused about where they were and what was going on.  Unfit for trial!

And yet so agile were these doctors that they sometimes needed only sixty seconds to provide therapy.

One of the charges accuses the Mirans of booking four to five intensive psychotherapy sessions in the same hour and conducting psychotherapy sessions from just one to 12 minutes at a time.

This wonderful example of straight-faced style is by Bob Geary, at IndyWeek.Com. UD and her sidekick SOS are absolutely unable to improve upon it. Bravo.

Timothy Johnson, the newly elected vice chairman of the state Republican party, is listed as “Dr. Johnson” on his and the state GOP’s Web sites. But he’s not a medical doctor or dentist. And he won’t disclose where he earned his Ph.D., leaving the impression that he got it from a now-defunct school once notorious as a diploma mill.

The Indy contacted Johnson to ask whether his claimed “Ph.D., Concentration in Total Quality Management, LaSalle University (2000)” was issued by the defunct LaSalle in Louisiana, the accredited La Salle University in Pennsylvania or another LaSalle.

Johnson responded in an e-mail, “I hope you understand when I say I am not going to answer any more questions about my military experience, education background or personal history.”

He added: “It just doesn’t matter at this point. I am sorry, but enough is enough. Have a great weekend.”

His e-mail signature read: “Timothy F. Johnson, Ph.D.”

The accredited La Salle University, a Catholic institution with three campuses in Pennsylvania, confers a doctoral degree only in clinical psychology, according to its Web site.

The LaSalle in Louisiana, however, as the authoritative Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2001, operated as a diploma mill from 1986 to mid-1997, essentially selling degrees (it advertised heavily on matchbook covers) until the FBI raided and shut it down. Its owner, Thomas J. Kirk, was imprisoned for mail and tax fraud, among other charges. That “university” employed no faculty, only secretaries to handle the paperwork and the money.

In late ’97, according to the Chronicle, the Louisiana LaSalle was purchased by seemingly “serious” owners including the then-chairwoman of the Louisiana Republican party. They later folded LaSalle’s assets into their newly formed company, the Orion Education Corp., after failing to win accreditation for LaSalle from the Distance Education and Training Council in 1999.

Johnson’s résumé is included on the Web site of Leadership 101, a company that offers him as its CEO and “lead consultant.” Leadership 101 lists its business is “training leaders for success in the 21st century.”

Johnson, the Web site promises, is “entertaining, thought-provoking and inspiring.”

Johnson is also employed as an adjunct faculty member at Shaw University’s Asheville campus. He was in the U.S. Army from 1984 to 2007 in active and reserve roles, starting as an enlisted soldier and retiring with the rank of major, according to a document he released prior to the state GOP convention when his military service was questioned.

The 1,600 delegates to the GOP convention in Raleigh this month chose Johnson as their No. 2 official, despite the news—widely circulated by his opponents and broken publicly by the Asheville media the week before the convention—that he’d pleaded guilty in 1996 to a felonious assault on his first wife. A resident of Cleveland, Ohio at the time, Johnson received an 18-month suspended sentence contingent on his relocating to Toledo, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. (Johnson was then seeking an Ohio legislative seat as a Democrat.)

Johnson asked convention delegates to forgive his past mistake and, in accordance with his slogan (“It’s Time”), make him the first African-American officer in the state GOP since the 19th century.

On the floor of the convention, Johnson campaigned wearing his “Dr. Timothy F. Johnson” name tag despite the rumors already circulating that his doctorate was bogus. At the time, the rumors took a backseat to his criminal record, though, and most delegates seemed to be unaware of questions about his educational background when they voted.

Their attention, moreover, was on the hotly contested race for party chairman, won by former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer. (See “The very, very, very small tent,” June 17.)

When he was elected chair of the Buncombe County Republican party in 2008, Johnson did not disclose his criminal record because, he told the Indy in an interview at the convention, it was “nobody’s business” except his second wife’s, and he did tell her.

Chris McClure, executive director of the state GOP, did not return a phone call or answer an e-mail asking the basis for the party’s listing of Johnson, its new vice-chair, as “Dr. Timothy Johnson.”