I just read this worrying paper summarizing a big problem we should all be aware: “Maintaining Scientific Integrity in a Climate of Perverse Incentives and Hypercompetition“.

I don’t have a perfect solution to change the system for good, but I have an easy patch to help your integrity and the integrity of your group. And I say this because I am very conscious that I am (we all are) weak and when under pressure, the easier person to fool is yourself. This means, that even if you don’t want to cheat consciously, behaviors like p-hacking, ad hoc interpretations and not double checking results that fit your expectations are hard to avoid if you are on your own. So this is the patch: Don’t do things alone. You can fool yourself, but it’s harder to fool your team-mates. And as a corollary, don’t let your students do field work, data cleaning, analysis, etc… alone. Somedays I may be tired and tempted to be more sloppy during fieldwork, for example, but if I have a team-mate with me, it’s easier overcome the situation as a team. In our lab, one way to do this is using git collaboratively. Git tracks all steps of your research since data entry. The first thing we do when we have raw data is to upload it to git and check it ideally at least among 2 of us. This creates a permanent record and avoids the temptation of editing anything there if results are not what you expected later on. Same with data cleaning, and analysis. When those steps are shared and your actions are tracked, it’s easier to be honest. Just to be clear, this mechanism doesn’t work as the threat of a “big brother” that is watching you, is more a feeling of teamwork, where you want to live for the team expectations.