Deliberate Fraud Research Articles

The Potemkin village and the art of deception

Potemkin village is something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance. The software analogies for the Potemkin village are ripe for exploration. Software antipatterns address problem-solution pairs in which the typical solution is more harmful than the problem it solves. In essence, an antipattern presents an identifiable problem, the accompanying harmful effects of the typical solution, and a more appropriate solution called a refactoring. In this sense, the software version of a Potemkin village is an antipattern: Problem: deliver software with an impressive interface quickly. Solution: employ a ready-made architecture that provides an impressive interface quickly; spend as little time as possible on the back-end processing. Refactoring: do it right the first time. The author doesn't want to make the case too strongly that the building of Potemkin villages is a deliberate strategy of fraud that companies perpetrate. Is a weak piece of software covered by an elaborate GUI a deliberate fraud or simply poor design? You must assume the latter in the absence of proof. When faced with a Potemkin village or an emperor's new clothes situation, you must expose it immediately. Doing so is not easy when a high-quality GUI masks the shortcomings. You can, however, detect the situation through design reviews, and code inspections, reviews, or walkthroughs. Therefore, managers who oversee software projects (and customers who buy software) should require these reviews. Testing can sometimes uncover the situation, but it might be too late at this point. Test-driven design, on the other hand, can help avoid a Potemkin village.

The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test: fraudulent science in the American courts.

The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) test was conceived, developed and promulgated as a simple procedure for the determination of the blood alcohol concentration of drivers suspected of driving while intoxicated (DWI). Bypassing the usual scientific review process and touted through the good offices of the federal agency responsible for traffic safety, it was rushed into use as a law enforcement procedure, and was soon adopted and protected from scientific criticism by courts throughout the United States. In fact, research findings, training manuals and other relevant documents were often held as secrets by the state. Still, the protective certification of its practitioners and the immunity afforded by judicial notice failed to silence all the critics of this deeply flawed procedure. Responding to criticism, the sponsors of the test traveled the path documented in this paper that led from mere (if that word can ever truly apply to a matter of such gravity) carelessness in research through self-serving puffery and finally into deliberate fraud--always at the expense of the citizen accused.

Memory: how we use it, lose it and can improve it

Few things are as essential to our lives-and as apparently unfathomable-as our memories. As Jane Austen's heroine Fanny Price remarks in Mansfield Park, if any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory ...sometimes so retentive and so serviceable, so obedient-and at others so bewildered and so weak. In Memory, David Samuel draws on a lifetime of scientific research to produce an informative and wide-ranging view of the subject. He examines how memory has been investigated in the past and what modern studies of brain structure and function can tell us about it. He then goes on to discuss long-term, short-term, and working memory, the limits to and normal loss of memory, the effects of alcohol, drugs and anxiety, Alzheimer's, and both deliberate and unintentional fraud in tricks of memory. While exploring the future of memory research, he also addresses the age-old questions of how to improve our memory and why certain people, such as diplomats, actors and doormen, have such good memories.

White Crime: S&L Christmas

George Bailey, the savings and loan banker portrayed by the late Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, was rescued by a guardian angel. Forced to the edge of bankruptcy by a thieving developer, Bailey had been considering suicide. The angel convinced him that his banking practices justified his existence. Providing low-interest, long-term mortgages, he had helped ordinary people buy homes. He had even lent money for cheap houses to Italian immigrants. Banker Bailey was right-wing Jimmy Stewart's favorite role, and the Frank Capra film is the favorite image of writers contrasting the S&Ls of the 1940s and 1950s with the scandalous institutions of the last fifteen years. One important similarity has been missed. The angel rekindled Bailey's will to live, but it was the townspeople's money-and a timely infusion of foreign capital-which saved his bank. Today, the townspeople's money is paying the interest on the bonds sold to large investors around the world for the S&L rescue. The largest government bailout in history-bigger than Chrysler, the City of New York, Lockheed, Penn Central, and Continental Illinois Bank combined-the subsidy has passed $200 billion and is expected to reach around $500 billion. Big Money Crime is a fascinating analysis of the fraud and political corruption that permeated the failure of the S&Ls in the 1980s. Vividly written, clearly argued, and scrupulously researched, Big Money Crime offers persuasive evidence that deliberate insider fraud was at the very center of the disaster.... [S]ystematic political collusion-not just policy error-was a critical ingredient in the collapse (p. 1). Social scientists Kitty Calavita, Henry N. Pontell, and Robert H. Tillman base their conclusions on three years of fieldwork within the S&L investigation, funded in part by the National Institute of Justice of the U.S. Department of Justice. A succinct and compelling account of a tsunami of white-collar criminality, Big Money Crime is a

Les bonnes pratiques sont un moyen pour prévenir la fraude en recherche clinique

The aim of this article is to present the findings concerning scientific fraud that have appeared in case reports. Deliberate scientific fraud does exist. The fact that most of the documented cases have occurred in Anglo-Saxon countries seems to indicate, not that Anglo-Saxons are more prone to scientific fraud, but rather that they have been more successful in bringing it to light. Since 1974, 72 cases have been reported in which there was either conclusive evidence or else a strong presumption of fraud: one case in Switzerland, one in Canada, four in Australia, 14 in Great Britain and 52 in the United States. Fraud is estimated to affect 2-5% of clinical research trials. Referees and readers do not set out to track fraud. The American Commission has proposed the terms "misappropriation, interference, misrepresentation" to define fraud. Voluntary fraud is hidden and its detection delayed. In well-known cases, more than 5 years elapsed before the information reached the scientific community. Whistle blowers must sustain a determined effort to denounce fraud over a period of 1-3 years if they are to trigger an investigation. Some whistle blowers have themselves been accused of fraud because their claims proved so embarrassing. Fraud can lead to severe accidents and generate expenditure that those responsible, or the institutions they work for, will never pay back. Frauders are usually motivated by the desire for material gain or the desire to become well-known. The motivating factor may be personal enrichment, or a need for funds for a not-for-profit association. People found guilt of fraud always have good excuses. Some simply do not realize what they have done. A knowledge of research methodology and critical appraisal methods can help to prevent fraud. Good clinical, laboratory and manufacturing practice can help to prevent misconduct and trickery. Audits and inspections are another essential means of combatting fraud.

Magician accuses faith healers of hoax

Discussions of faith healing have traditionally focused on the persuasiveness of the healer and the receptivity of the audience. Recently magician James Randi investigated popular American faith healers and accused them of deliberate fraud. The deceptions he identified are those used for many years by fraudulent mediums and psychics. This paper reviews the history of conflict between charlatans and magicians, providing a context for understanding the findings of Randi.

Scientists and judgment

It seems that these days we read once every month an article in the newspaper on another case of scientific 'fraud,' and we scientists are struck apprehensive by the seeming explosiveness of the issue. Is there really that much more 'finagling' with the data now than there was 10 years ago, 20 years ago? I think this is hard to judge correctly, for the very same reason that crime statistics are suspect, for we don't know how much was not reported, either from ignorance, or from a 'covering-up.' But, whatever the extent of the 'fraud', and whatever its extent relative to a past scientific age, i am sure that the public is not amused, that indeed a scornful finger is being pointed at scientists, particularly at what is perceived to be the 'holier than thou' attitude, the hubris, of scientists. That being so, it certainly becomes scientists, both individually and as part of the scientific community, to try to come to terms with the twin issues of responsibility and judgment. While these two issues are related to each other, and certainly impinge upon each other, they are separate and distinct, and can be discussed separately and distinctly. The idea of responsibility relates to individuality, either of the scientists himself, or of the scientific community taken as a whole. But the idea of judgments brings in the whole social milieu within which the scientist works, for it begins to ask the question as to who is tO ascertain where the responsibility lies, and what the bases are upon which these judgments will be made. I would like to address the second issue, of judgment, for I believe the first is discussed in other articles in this series; however, in doing so I will necessarily bring in my own ideas about responsibility. Furthermore, I must state that judgments are and will be made not only about 'fraud' but also about conflicting results. It is many times very difficult to separate what is deliberate fraud from conflicts in results. This can be illustrated by a case about which I know something. This involved a case in which 'fraud' was practically certain but almost impossible to prove. When the young scientist involved was fired and began to look for a job, his former mentor

The Publication of Books without Dates

IS it not time that men of science should raise a protest against the publication of books without a date on their title-page? This is a practice which has been common to maps and a certain class of books of reference, and it comes, to my mind, very near to being a deliberate fraud, as it seeks to pass off as new that which is more or less obsolete. We should surely do our utmost to prevent this habit from spreading to scientific books, such as the translation of van't Hoff's “Physical Chemistry,” which is reviewed in NATURE of February 7.

On the Generalization of Josephus' Problem

In the third Book of The Wars of the Jews, Chap. VIII. § 7, we are told that Josephus managed to save himself and a companion out of a total of 41 men, the majority of whom had resolved on self-extermination (to avoid falling into the hands of Vespasian) provided their leader died with them. The passage is very obscure, and in a sense self-contradictory, but it obviously suggests deliberate fraud of some kind on Josephus' part.“And now,” said he, “since it is resolved among you that you will die, come on, let us commit our mutual deaths to determination by lot. He whom the lot falls to first, let him be killed by him that hath the second lot, and thus fortune shall make its progress through us all; nor shall any of us perish by his own right hand, for it would be unfair if, when the rest are gone, some-body should repent and save himself.” Whiston, Works of Flavius Josephus, IV. 39.Bachet, in No. XXIII. of his Problèmes plaisants et délectables, makes a definite hypothesis as to the possible nature of the lot here spoken of; so that the problem, as we have it, is really his.“Supposons qu'il ordonna que comptant de 3 en 3 on tuerait toujours le troisième, …. il faut que Josèphe se mît le trenteunième après celui par lequel on commençait a compter, au cas qu'il visât à demeurer en vie lui tout seul.