Abstract
EVEN IN a period of great cynicism about deceit in politics, religion, and finance, people want to feel confident about professionals on whose special expertise they must rely. That confidence is being eroded, and some of the erosion is appropriate. There has been malpractice in the law, in medicine, and in business; critics charge that efforts to detect, punish, and prevent it have been desultory and ineffective. In recent years, allegations also have been made of serious misconduct in scientific research.<sup>1,2</sup>These charges of fraud are all the more notable because science is an enterprise that is supposed to be devoted to truth. Unfortunately, some of the charges of research fraud have been confirmed. In one case, there has been a criminal indictment of a scientist who falsified data on drug treatments for patients with mental retardation (<i>New York Times</i>, May 24, 1987, p 12). In another, policy decisions
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