Impure Science

How the pursuit of money and recognition has helped to compromise and corrupt scientific research in America... Evidence of scientific fraud has splashed across the front pages of the nations newspapers and magazines in recent months, from stories of doctored data in what has become known as the Baltimore case, to Stanford University president Donald Kennedy's alleged misuse of university funds, and his subsequent resignation. In Impure Science, Robert Bell removes the veil of secrecy from the entire process of how science is funded in the United States, and shows why data manipulation and political influence increasingly become part of the scientific landscape. With more scientists scrambling after fewer research dollars, the pressure on scientists to justify their research with notable results encourages some to alter their research or overstate their results. In case after case, from the halls of the National Science Foundation to the backrooms of Congress, from private corporations to public universities, Dr. Bell provides detailed examples of scientific research gone awry. Culled from whistle-blowing investigations and inside sources, Impure Science shows how science funding is influenced by porkbarrel politics within science organizations; how scientists, eager to cash in on "breakthrough" discoveries, begin manufacturing and developing the fruits of their discoveries before the results have been substantiated; and how, as in the Baltimore case, some scientists go so far as to alter data when it does not support the conclusions they had hoped to find. The most disturbing aspect of Dr. Bell's investigation, however, is the fact that scientific institutions are often more interestedin covering up fraud, than exposing or