Massive fraud found in Social Psychologists' research

You may have thought that fraud in science was limited to global warming studies.  Ewen Callaway of Nature magazine reports otherwise:

When colleagues called the work of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel too good to be true, they meant it as a compliment. But a preliminary investigative report (go.nature.com/tqmp5c) released on October 31 gives literal meaning to the phrase, detailing years of data manipulation and blatant fabrication by the prominent Tilburg University researcher.

"We have some 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake, and there are more to come," says Pim Levelt, chair of the committee that investigated Stapel's work at the university.

The fraud apparently took the form of phony data. Stapel's coauthors used the data but reportedly were unaware of its fraudulent nature.

Stapel's research included work on stereotyping and discrimination.

Hat tip: Instapundit.