If the Results Seem Too Good to be True...

...They just may be: Dutch psychologist admits he made up research data

A Dutch psychologist has admitted making up data and faking research over many years in studies which were then published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Diederik Stapel, a psychologist working at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said he had "failed as a scientist" and was ashamed of what he had done, but had been driven to falsifying research by constant pressure to perform...

"I was not able to withstand the pressure to score points, to publish, to always have to be better," he said in his statement. "I wanted too much, too fast. And in a system where there is little control, where people often work alone, I took the wrong path."

And what was this work that was important enough to cheat for?

Science published a study by Stapel and colleague Siegwart Lindenberg in April which found that people are more likely to discriminate against others when their surroundings are disordered and messy.

Alberts said he now wanted to alert readers "that serious concerns have been raised about the validity of the findings in this report."

I have no doubt that he believed his hypothesis to start with, and fudging the work to match his expectations occurred in small steps out of frustration with the real world to conform to his beliefs, coupled with the requirement to "publish or perish".  And it's not true.  I don't discriminate against anyone...

Found in a post by Smitty at The Other McCain's.