The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.16 Asmongold Update is Crazy, Diddy Revenge Scandal, New Election Law BLOCKED, Scientific Misconduct, &

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

I've never seen anything like this... Go to https://ground.news/defranco to stay fully informed, think critically about the news you consume and get all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through my link.  Beam’s Dream is clinically shown to improve sleep. Click https://shopbeam.com/defranco and use code DEFRANCO to get up to 35% off. 20 Days Until Election Day! Make Sure You Are Registered to VOTE: https://Vote.org  – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Asmongold Apologizes, Promises to Work on Self-Improvement  04:41 - Diddy Asks for Alleged Victims to Be Named 07:49 - Sponsored by Ground News 09:21 - Deaf Black Man Charged for Resisting Arrest After Being Beaten By Police 13:15 - Ga. Blocks Hand-Counted Ballots Rule, Ne. Felons Can Vote & More Election News  18:03 - Sponsored by Beam 19:06 - Scientific Papers With Fudged Data are Running Rampant & Causing Excess Deaths ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Jared Paolino Associate Producer on Scientific Misconduct: Jared Paolino ———————————— #DeFranco #Asmongold #Diddy ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show, your daily dive into the news. We have a lot to talk about today, but the first thing we've got to talk about today is the huge update around the Asmongold ban and scandal. Because today we just witnessed one of the most blistering takedowns of Asmongold,

but it came from Asmongold himself. I think this has been going on now for like two years. I think that I've been slowly devolving into the most mean spirited, uh, just, uh, like, like, I don't really even know what the word is for it. Uh, just like the most mean spirited, rude, like nasty, uh, like just callous, psychopathic version of myself. I'm just a idiot. I'm a moron.

I've been an asshole. I think that I've devolved for the last two years. I think that I've negatively affected other people too, in ways that I hate, I don't even hate to say this. Like I think I need to say this. I need to say it more. I've negatively affected people in ways that I regret. Or with those just being small bits

of major statements he made this morning in a 20 plus minute video, apologizing for his comments about Palestinians. It was apology kind of extended to things that he's done over the years now. But like we talked about yesterday, all of this is happening now because he specifically faced a ton of backlash

for calling Palestinians an inferior culture and saying that they're terrible people so he won't cry a river over a genocide against them. It was just a huge swath of people outraged equating those comments to Nazi rhetoric. And while he initially issued a statement walking some of that back on Twitter saying, my bad, that really did not go over well,

which led us to this morning's video where he actually started off by thanking people for calling him out, saying his remarks and how he said them were disgusting, noting that he's still against religious extremism and using it to oppress people. But what he was saying was just not fair. But whenever I categorize everybody in the area as this group, then I'm the asshole. And I was the asshole. And I'm sorry. I really am.

I think that it's extremely fair to criticize religious extremism. And I think that it's extremely unfair to categorize everybody in part of that group as religious extremism. And I think that it's extremely unfair to categorize everybody in part of that group as religious extremists. I think it is, and I'm really sorry for that. With him later explaining that another moment that made him realize that he needed to reflect on his beliefs and what he was doing,

it came when he was getting death threats left and right yesterday, but then. Do you know who reached out to me? And they wanted to talk and have a conversation and see if I was okay. People that were Islamic and people that were fed from family in Palestine. And I, how humiliating is that? How absolutely humiliating is that? And these were the people I was trying to say were bad. Right again, Asmongold coming back saying this isn't an isolated incident, talking about going down a spiral for the past two years,

even noting that people around him have tried to talk to him. And I've had, again, everybody in the world telling me this, including my own dad, and I've just ignored them. And finally, it's like, you know what? Maybe I'm an asshole. Maybe this is too far. Maybe I need a course correction, which is why

I think that like getting suspended in this, I hope that it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I need to get myself in check. I need to get my mind under control. I need to like just get my life to fix my life. He also talked about how being online and consuming so much online has warped his worldview. When you get lost in the sauce and you get fixated around like listening and reading feedback and just getting hyper fixated, this is like your entire life, you lose a perspective on reality

and you lose a perspective on the world. I've always had a negative opinion of religion and I've also had a negative opinion of religious cultures. And I think that really, I think that opinion is definitely shaped by the media that I've created and the media I've created for myself. And then also just the media that exists, the media that I've chose to seek out as well. And I think that that media has allowed me to have certain predispositions and certain biases that the truth is that don't have any sort of relation to what my own real life has been experienced

or my own real life experience has been, excuse me. And then on top of all of that, he said that he's stepping back from his leadership role at OTK while he takes time to work on himself because he just doesn't wanna be a mean person anymore. Now, of course, with this, everyone's gonna have different sorts of opinions, some defending him, some going after him.

So I gotta ask you, as all of those are coming in and they're wildly different depending on where you're going on the internet, what's your take? What is your opinion? What camp are you landing in here and why? But then in P. Diddy update news, P. Diddy wants the feds to name names.

Specifically, he wants them to name the names of his alleged victims. With his lawyers writing a letter to a New York judge yesterday claiming that Diddy needs to know their identities in order to prepare for the trial. And this of course is all tied to the massive sex trafficking case

that he's currently facing. But also as that case plays out, there are over a dozen lawsuits alleging sexual assault, rape and claims similar to those in the federal case. And this is dozens more lawsuits are likely coming. So as lawyers argued in this letter that the case is very unique because there is so much public interest in it.

And they claim that the interest has resulted in a torrent of anonymous allegations, which they say range from false to outright absurd. With the letter going on to say, "'These swirling allegations have created "'a hysterical media circus that, if left unchecked, "'will irreparably deprive Mr. Combs of a fair trial "'if they haven't already.' "'Without clarity from from the government, Mr. Combs has no way of knowing

which allegations the government is relying on for purposes of the indictment. Other than victim one, there is no way for Mr. Combs to determine who the other identified alleged victims are. Reportedly, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has so far been opposed to disclosing alleged victims' names. And as of recording, they haven't given comment on this latest request. So we'll have to wait to see what happens there, but of course that's not the only Diddy-related news that's coming out now. Part is because the department store Macy's

is now being accused of covering up a sexual assault allegation against Diddy, with a lawsuit filed this week having a John Doe claiming that he was orally raped by Diddy while working in the stockroom of the flagship Macy's in New York. Which to give some background here, Diddy's clothing line, Sean John,

was previously sold at Macy's and was such a big brand at the store that the two eventually inked an exclusive deal. So you have the John Doe in this suit saying that he was working for Echo, a rival brand that was also sold at Macy's at the time. And he alleged that in 2008, Diddy entered the stockroom with armed bodyguards

while he was working and claimed that the guards struck him and threatened to kill him. And then going on to claim that after that, Diddy demanded he perform oral sex on him in a two-minute attack. And after that, you had the lawsuit claiming that Diddy then just grabbed armfuls of his Sean John merch and went to the store floor to pass it to an adoring crowd

as if nothing had happened. This lawsuit accusing Macy's of covering this incident up because even though the John Doe says he quickly reported the alleged assault to security, there was no follow-up and he was eventually barred from the store. The lawsuit even claiming that the CEO of Macy's actually pressured the Echo brand to fire him from the store

because Macy's had just signed a major deal with Diddy. Though again, that's just one of the several disturbing lawsuits filed just this week. But another got filed in California accusing Diddy of revenge rape in 2018. And this one coming from a woman who said that she met one of Diddy's friends at a bar and in an effort to impress people, that friend made a video call to Diddy. However, said she didn't want to engage because she believed that Diddy had something to do with the murder of Tupac, which you know is a theory that's existed for a long time now. But according to the suit, Diddy then wanted to make her pay after hearing her suggest he was involved in the murder.

With it then being claimed that about a month later, that friend invited the woman to his house and Diddy unexpectedly showed up and held a knife to her face. And further claiming that Diddy then ripped off her clothes and raped her with a TV remote, all while telling her that her life was in his hands and if he wanted, she would never be seen again.

The suit also claiming that after this, she was then raped by multiple people until she couldn't even move her body. And that woman saying she reported the incident to police, but that no action was taken and now she's suing Diddy and six other people. And again, these are just the latest stories. It feels like every other day,

there's a new disturbing allegation coming out. But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see what continues coming out, how all of this is gonna play out. But in the meantime, I'd love to know your thoughts on the situation in general, as well as the specifics around Diddy wanting the victims to be named or the new assault and coverup claims.

Then, the recent Kanye accusations, they're all over the internet and the coverage has been wild. Dramatized stories, controversial characters. I mean, it's no wonder that there's chaos that often clouds the full picture. With all news, we strive for clarity here and so does today's sponsor, Ground News.

For example, when looking into Kanye's allegations on Ground News, I can access more than 150 articles published on the topic worldwide, and their Blindspot feed, it services stories that are underreported in mainstream media, which is something that can be incredibly helpful whether you're producing a show or you're just consuming, or getting news from across the world and political spectrum.

Especially because you, I, these organizations, the people putting out this content, everyone to a certain degree has leanings, biases, blind spots, and it helps us to get out of our echo chambers. There's a benefit to balance, sometimes in understanding a different point of view and or to realize why people are covering things incorrectly.

You can benefit from balance and understanding a different person's point of view or understanding the argumentation being used so we can swing back. But this also is, you know, there are blind spots. I mean, your average right-leaning consumer will likely have missed the alleged collaboration between Trump and X to ban an independent reporter

for publishing links to hacked information on J.D. Vance. 95% of coverage on that could be found on left or center outlets. And similarly, left-leaning viewers might've missed John Kerry claiming that the First Amendment is a, quote, major block to stopping disinformation. Out of 60 plus articles there, not a single headline came from the left.

It's a news silos are real and Ground News gives you the tools to see all sides before making up your mind and understanding things. And best of all, right now, you guys can get 40% off unlimited access to the Vantage Plan, which is what I use to read the news. So go to ground.news.deFranco or scan the QR code today. But then we need to talk about this wild

and disturbing situation around Tyrone McAlpin, because he is a deaf black man with cerebral palsy. And on August 19th, he had the misfortune of meeting Phoenix police officers, Ben Harris and Kyle Sue. And we can actually watch a lot of this story play out now, thanks to Tyrone's lawyer who shared body cam and surveillance footage with the media.

So what we know is that it all started with police receiving a call from a nearby convenience store about a white man acting aggressively. Police then arrive on the scene, and this guy, Derek Stevens, claims that he had been attacked by a black man who had stolen his phone. The men pointing out Tyrone, who had just left,

and was reportedly walking home while on a video call with his wife using sign language. And so the officers, they just take this guy's word, and they drive after the black guy. And you didn't confirm Derek's story with any of the witnesses inside? No. But it's then getting to see how this encounter started.

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around the back. But then, before the truck even comes to a complete stop, Harris is out the door. And because we're on YouTube, I can't show it all, but he grabs Tyrone, he pushes him, punches him, and eventually brings him to the ground. And Ty we're on YouTube, I can't show it all, but he grabs Tyrone, he pushes him, punches him, and eventually brings him to the ground. And Tyrone, of course, was backing away. He also put his hands up in defense. And yes, it looks like he may have even thrown a couple of punches right back. But also with this keeping in mind,

it's not clear that he even had time to register the fact that it was a police officer who was attacking him. But in any case, with Tyrone now face down on the ground, Harris is repeatedly barking the same order at him. Put your hands behind your back. Put your hands behind your back. Get your hands behind your back. Get your hands behind your back. Get your hands behind your back.

With us then seeing Tyrone being punched again and again and then tasered at least once or twice. And then with Tyrone's body just contorted in agony, him yelling in pain, the officer just keeps shouting. Hands behind your back. Hands behind your back. And so with this, you have Tyrone's attorney saying he didn't obey the officer's commands because he was deaf and couldn't hear it.

Now on the other side, you also have officers claiming Tyrone bit one of them on the hand. With also the other reporting an injury to his left hand, though that was from delivering, quote, "'as many close fist strikes as he could' to Tyrone's head area." You know, with all this, we end up hearing the police's first version of events

when Tyrone's wife walked over and saw her husband being held down on the ground. Doesn't wanna go in the car.'t want to go in the car. He was on the phone with me. Really? Yeah. Okay, well, he's under arrest for assault on a police officer. What happened? He assaulted somebody at the Circle K. You can wait over there. I'll tell you right about it in a little bit. The whole time he didn't assault nobody. Okay. Well, he did now. Well, he did now. That's right. Apparently, the officer's story is that Tyrone attacked them. With Officer Harris's police report saying he instructed Tyrone to stop, and Tyrone, quote,

communicated his intent to avoid contact by changing direction. With him then claiming that he approached Tyrone to detain him, and that Tyrone immediately began swinging punches at his head in a fighting stance and engaging in assaults to cause him harm and injury. And so with all that, Tyrone's now being charged with felony counts of resisting arrest and two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer. He was also initially charged with theft,

seemingly based on the word of Derek alone. Also notably, neither of the officer's incident reports mentions that Tyrone is deaf and has cerebral palsy, which police were told immediately after the arrest. And police also reportedly failed to mention Tyrone's disabilities and materials provided for his bail hearing. With that then ending with Tyrone spending 24 days in jail

and his attorney saying it was the first time he had ever been incarcerated. So now we have to see what's gonna happen because with all this, you have Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell saying in a statement that the case merits additional scrutiny and that she'll be reviewing the file

including the body camera video. Also at the same time, a Phoenix Police Department spokesperson said the case had been assigned to its Professional Standards Bureau and was under internal investigation. With that specific investigation, you have people skeptical, right?

People saying, yeah, because nobody investigates police misconduct better than the police themselves. But that said, it will be very interesting to see what and if anything happens here. Especially since all of this happened just a couple of months after the Justice Department released the findings of a massive investigation into civil rights violations

by the Phoenix Police Department and City of Phoenix. With them specifically there, among other things, finding that the city's police routinely used excessive force and discriminated against black, Hispanic, and native American people. Right, so Tyrone McAlpin, he's not the first. He very likely will not be the last, but there is an increased likelihood that this specific

situation gets a bigger spotlight. But then we got to talk about big election updates, because a lot of big things are playing out in a lot of different states right now. Starting in Georgia, where a county judge dealt a major blow to Republican efforts to fuck with the election. With Robert C.I. McBurney blocking a rule passed last month by the GOP-led state election board

that would have required poll workers to hand count all ballots. Which notably is a move that could have upended the entire election process because it would take for fucking ever and risk delaying the reporting of results in a state that could help determine the outcome of the election. What was wild is that rule received

almost universal opposition from local election officials and even top Republicans like the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, with them arguing that the decision was made too close to the election. And in his ruling, McBurney actually agreed, saying that the rule was quote, too much, too late. Now, very notably here, this judge's decision doesn't shut down the rule entirely.

It's just gonna be stopping it from taking effect in this election while he considers the legal arguments. So it's possible that this could be implemented in future elections, but at least not for now. So Georgia has dodged a major bullet here. When I say major, I mean it, no hyperbole here. Because this election already has a historic turn in. With early voting in Georgia kicking off just yesterday

and a record number of people casting ballots. With officials saying that voters broke the previous record for first day early voting by a mile with over 328,000 total votes. Yo, that is double the previous first day record of 136,000 in 2020. Also beyond all that, McBurney's decision on the hand count rule,

it also comes just one day after he made another very significant judgment. With him ruling that local officials can't just refuse to certify the results of an election regardless of any concerns about accuracy or fraud. With him striking down a lawsuit from a far right member of the Fulton County Board of Elections who had done exactly that

and argued that it was her right to do so. With McBurney there writing that there is literally nothing in state law that gives county election leaders the power to quote, declare fraud or more importantly, determine the consequences for it if it in fact occurs. And a key thing noting there, that there are already numerous other bodies in Georgia that are explicitly given the power to investigate

suspected fraud and determine what should happen. And the judge's decision there is also super significant because like his ruling yesterday, this one has the potential to go way beyond just Georgia. For example, the Washington Post explaining that the judgment adds to a body of judicial precedent that Democrats hope will undermine Republican attempts to sow chaos or undermine the election.

Because experts widely predict that Trump allies nationwide are going to attempt to block election results by refusing to certify results in key swing state counties. And this is like, it's not like they are trying to hide it. This is something that has literally already happened in multiple elections since 2020. In fact, that's at the center of another one of our election stories today,

which comes out of Virginia. The two Republican election officials in Waynesboro County filing a lawsuit saying that they won't certify the general election unless the state allows them to hand count ballots. Specifically here, the two Republicans allege without any evidence that the voting machines in the county could be programmed

to rig the outcome of the election. Claiming that by using voting machines to tabulate balance, the state is effectively counting votes in secret, which violates a provision in the state constitution. So we'll have to wait to see what happens there, but also not the end of the election news today. And that because we had important news

coming out of Nebraska, where the state Supreme Court just ruled that felons can vote in the election, with them upholding a longstanding policy that Republican officials had tried to undermine, right? Because since 2005, Nebraska has had a law in the books that allows former felons to vote two years after finishing their sentences.

And earlier this year, the state's unicameral legislature passed a measure with overwhelming bipartisan support that would remove the two-year waiting period. And while the state's Republican governor neither signed nor vetoed the bill, he still allowed it to become a law. But then, just days before the new law

was set to take effect, the Republican state attorney general, Mike Hilgers, wrote an opinion arguing that both the new law and the 2005 policy violated the separation of powers laid out under the state constitution. With him claiming only the state board of pardons, which he sits on, had the power to restore

the voting rights of people with felony convictions by issuing pardons, which it rarely does. So as a result, the Republican secretary of state, who also sits on the board of pardons, told election officials to stop registering people with felony convictions. But now with this latest news, the state's high court has ordered the secretary of state

to allow felons who have finished their sentences to vote. And that decision is actually super consequential because while Nebraska, no, it is not a swing state, it is one of the only states that allows its presidential electoral votes to be split between its three districts. And the district that covers Omaha could either go red or blue.

I mean, it's voted Democrat twice before, including in 2020. And this is, you know, Nebraska is a very small state in terms of population. So denying hundreds or thousands of people the right to vote, it could actually sway the election there. And this, as current polling still has all of this, is it a coin flip?

But then for the final bit of election news, that takes us to Ohio, and specifically Portage County, where the Justice Department has now announced that it will be monitoring the election due to voter intimidation concern. Right, and this decision comes after the county sheriff wrote Facebook posts urging citizens

to write down the addresses of people who displayed yard signs supporting Harris, which obviously sparked concerns about voter intimidation and resulted in the county's election board banning the sheriff's office from providing security during early voting. And while technically the DOJ didn't explicitly say what prompted this decision, the statement explaining this move,

the agency did cite concerns about, quote, intimidation resulting from the surveillance and the collection of personal information regarding voters. And to actually end this section there, one final thing that I'll say, don't let them scare you. Vote like this may be the last chance you get to vote. Go to vote.org. You can find all the different things that you can vote on locally in your election. You can come up with an election game plan. Vote early. If you can, just get that shit out of the way. Election day is now just 20 days away. The countdown continues. But then, you know, taking a quick break from the news,

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and use code DeFranco or scan the QR code to get up to 35% off with my exclusive discount. But then, okay, so y'all, it is time for a deep dive. And the way I wanna start this is to say, imagine for a second that you or someone you know has to have surgery. And the doctor, they do everything right, right?

They follow the latest guidance, but still somehow something goes wrong. And then maybe a few years later, you find out that guidance, it was wrong. And in fact, that guidance was based on research that's now not only been debunked, but also should have never been published in the first place.

And unfortunately, I'm here to tell you that that might just be happening more than you think. And that's because scientific misconduct from just carelessness to outright fraud, it happens way more than most people realize. In fact, it's not only tolerated, it is arguably incentivized by the nature of academic publishing today.

And the wrongdoers, they're rarely held accountable. And so to just dive in, let me start the whole thing by telling you about Don Poldermans. He was a medical researcher at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands. And he spent years analyzing the risk of complications during cardiovascular surgery, publishing hundreds of papers, accumulating thousands of citations, and making a name for himself as one of the most influential researchers in the field. And he was especially well known for his work on what are known as beta blockers, or they're the type of medicine that limits the effects

of certain hormones in the body in order to slow down someone's heartbeat and lower their blood pressure. With Polderman's publishing dozens of papers on that topic alone, with one of the big questions he looked into being basically whether it'd be a good idea to give patients a beta blocker before certain surgeries.

And his research, it said yes. So not long after European medical guidelines and to a lesser extent, American guidelines recommended the practice. But then the problem, Polderman's data was fudged. Or at least in 2011, that medical center fired Polderman's for scientific misconduct.

With him then saying in a statement that, "'Research carried out under his leadership "'was not always performed in accordance "'with current scientific standards.'" With him specifically claiming that in his influential beta blocker study, quote, it was found that he used patient data without written permission, used fictitious data, and that two reports were submitted to conferences which included knowingly unreliable data. And then finally there, it said that, quote,

there were no medical implications for the patients who took part in the studies. But here's the thing. While that may be true, there were almost certainly medical implications for patients who didn't take part in the studies. In 2014, a new meta analysis came out evaluating whether to use beta blockers before non-cardiac surgery. And it found that beta blockers made it 27% more likely that someone would die within 30 days of their surgery.

Or in other words, the policy Polderman's had recommended on the basis of falsified data and that had been subsequently adopted by the European medical establishment was actually dramatically increasing the chances of people dying. And in fact, in 2014, two of the people behind the meta analysis estimated

that there may have been as many as 800,000 extra deaths that could have been otherwise avoided. Which also to be clear, that is a rough estimate and that number is still hotly debated. But then also going beyond that, Polderman's while accepting that mistakes were made has denied that he intentionally faked any data. But intentional or not, there is no doubt

that if you are faking medical research, you're playing with people's lives. And there, I mean, just to give an example that everyone can relate to, let's talk about COVID-19. Right, in 2020, near the start of the pandemic, there was a paper published in The Lancet, which if you don't know, I mean, that's one of the most prestigious

and well-regarded scientific journals in the world. And this study that it published, it claimed to have looked at more than 96,000 coronavirus patients across the world. And after controlling for age, sex, and how sick the subjects were, they found that patients receiving hydroxychloroquine or something similar were about twice as likely to die

as those who didn't. What we saw is within days, the World Health Organization suspending its study of the drug due to safety concerns. But at the same time, people looking closely at the study began seeing problems. But I mean, for one, the study reported more COVID-19 deaths of enrolled patients in the Australia portion than there more COVID-19 deaths of enrolled patients in the Australia

portion than there were COVID-19 deaths in the entire country. And then the hospital supposedly enrolled in the study revealed they had never heard of the company that conducted it. And so the paper was quickly retracted. And luckily, hydroxychloroquine is not, in fact, an effective COVID-19 treatment. So as far as these sorts of things go that we're talking about, no harm done. But of course,

that is not always the case. More than one bogus study helped perpetuate the myth that ivermectin was some sort of COVID-19 miracle drug, with it then actually becoming a focal point of the anti-vaxxer, vaccine-hesitant movement. But despite everything that we're talking about, holding people accountable is often impossible. If you are a surgeon and a patient dies on your table

and there's evidence of malpractice, you can bet your ass there's gonna be lawsuits. I mean, fuck, you might even face criminal charges. But if you conduct research on surgery and a patient dies on the table of a surgeon following your advice and there is evidence of misconduct or fraud, you might get fired.

I mean, Polderman's, he lost his job, but most of his papers weren't even retracted and he's faced no further consequences. And that is in no way unusual. I mean, take it from Elizabeth Bick. She studies scientific fraud and has personally discovered dozens of cases of altered images in medical journals. And she says it's very rare that people lose jobs over it. Take it from Elizabeth Bick, she studies scientific fraud and has personally discovered dozens of cases

of altered images in medical journals. And she says, it's very rare that people lose jobs over it. With her even telling Vox, if the most serious consequence for speeding was a police officer saying, don't do that again, everyone would be speeding. You know, with that, I should say that these cases that we've talked about so far,

they are of course just a fraction of the overall problem. I mean, in 2023, the number of papers retracted by scientific research journals topped 10,000 for the first time. Now. I mean, in 2023, the number of papers retracted by scientific research journals topped 10,000 for the first time. Now, of course, with that, some of that is due to increased awareness of the issue here, new tools for detecting fraud, as well as there being a growing army of volunteer sleuths

who analyze academic literature for anomalies. But even with that said, Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, who founded a group called Retraction Watch, they say that the number of retractions is almost definitely a vast undercount of how much misconduct and fraud exists. With them estimating there should be at least a hundred thousand retractions every year.

And some think that it should be even higher. And a lot of that here has to do with what's known as paper mills. These are sketchy companies that sell entire papers, authorship slots, or citations to a researcher's work to make it seem more important. And a big thing is that in some cases, journal editors have been bribed to accept articles

and paper mills have also managed to plant their own agents on editorial boards who then allow falsified work to be published. In fact, one investigation identified several paper mills and more than 30 editors of reputable journals who appear to have been involved in this type of activity. And I mean, just last May, major scientific publisher Wiley

basically had no choice but to shut down 19 scientific journals after retracting more than 11,000 sham papers. So understandably, people are worried that all this fraud is going to have a domino effect. I mean, you have people like Dorothy Bishop of Oxford University saying, In many fields, it is becoming difficult to build up a cumulative approach to a subject because we lack a solid foundation of trustworthy findings. And it's getting worse and worse. Add it. People are building careers on the back of this tidal wave of fraudulent science and could end up running scientific institutes and eventually be used

by mainstream journals as reviewers and editors. And then you also have folks like Malcolm McLeod of Edinburgh University saying, scientific knowledge is being polluted by made up material. We are facing a crisis. But then also with all of this, you have Oransky, right? One of the guys who co-founded Retraction Walk. He says that paper mills are not the problem,

but a symptom of the actual problem. With him going on to say, the problems in scientific literature are long standing and they're an incentive problem. And the metrics that people use to measure research feed a business model, a ravenous sort of insatiable business model. And there, people like him point to the fact

that university rankings rely heavily on the number of citations gained by work produced by the institution's researchers. Right, when universities move up the rankings, the more top tier students and faculty they attract along with more funding. And of course with this, the journals are making money too. Authors and universities, they pay journals

anywhere from hundreds of dollars to more than $10,000 to publish their papers and make them available without a subscription. And with that, researchers are often required either explicitly or by implication to publish papers in order to earn and keep jobs or to be promoted. As explained by Marcus Manafo of Bristol University, if you have growing numbers of researchers

who are being strongly incentivized to publish just for the sake of publishing, while we have a growing number of journals making money from publishing the resulting articles, you have a perfect storm. So with all this, forgetting trying to reform the whole system, even trying to hold individual wrongdoers accountable,

it faces major obstacles. Because they fight back. I mean, in one shocking case from back in 2006, a Bangladeshi researcher had his colleague murdered when he discovered the researcher's academic fraud. And that researcher, along with his accomplice, was hung last year. Of course, that is an extreme example. More often what we see are scientists accused of faking it, filing frivolous lawsuits against the people who point it out. And so that ends up making it so that people are afraid to speak out. Take for example, Francesca Gino, a Harvard Business School professor famous

for her research on the subject of dishonesty. Kind of perfect for the story today. Right, and in 2023, questions about her work surfaced in an article appearing on the Chronicle of Higher Education with then not long after a blog run by three behavioral scientists publishing a four-part series finding evidence of fraud in four academic papers co-authored by Gino.

And so she was placed on administrative leave. But last year, Harvard Business School released a report finding her responsible for the alleged misconduct and recommending that she be fired. Though notably, throughout all this, Gino maintained her innocence. In fact, she filed a defamation lawsuit against both Harvard and the bloggers

who first published the allegations. And that's an issue, because Gino doesn't have to win her lawsuit for it to have an impact. As outlets like Vox explained, she doesn't need to propose a credible theory of how the data manipulation could have happened without her involvement. In the words of defamation lawyer Ken White,

"'The process is the punishment.'" And with that, people like C.K. Gonzalez, an expert in research ethics, says that institutions often just stop investigating someone after they leave, which means potential future employers are totally unaware of the person's history of allegation. Notably, she said, one of the main reasons why is that the institution is afraid

a researcher will sue them for defamation if anything leaks out. Though, of course, with that said, you know, we have people that say you have to give people the benefit of the doubt, right? Because honest mistakes do happen. And in some cases, it is very hard to distinguish misconduct from someone just fucking up. I mean, for example, last January, a molecular biologist by the name of Sholto David uncovered evidence of widespread data manipulation in various cancer studies. And notably, this included leading researchers at the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

And among them is the Institute's CEO and COO. With that then leading to the retraction of six papers and an investigation with the Institute's research integrity officer, Barrett J. Rollins, saying, "'The presence of image discrepancies in a paper "'is not evidence of an author's intent to deceive.'" And that's true, right? Like I said, mistakes happen. But you also have people like David also saying,

the expectation is that scientists who do this research have high standards and are very careful in what they do. And asking how many errors are acceptable before we think something more worrying is happening. So of course, with that whole incentive structure that we talked about before, some people argue that mistakes are more likely. Or because even if someone doesn't outright commit fraud, they might rush things or cut corners to get publishable results. Which I mean, speaking of that cancer research in 2021, a $2 million eight-year attempt

to replicate influential cancer research papers ended with the realization that fewer than half of the experiments could actually be reproduced. But then all of that, of course, brings us to the question of what should be done. I mean, for the more extreme cases with clear cut cases of intentional fraud, right?

You have people talking about criminalizing, right? They say a new statute narrowly tailored to scientific fakery could make it clearer where to draw the line between carelessness and fraud. But of course that has problems too, right? In complex cases like these, courts can take years to deliver justice. Because in any case, most judges and juries

aren't well equipped to analyze the data themselves. So besides that, people like the founders of Retraction Watch have offered other recommendations for how this could be handled outside of the courtroom. Right, one thing would be to give government agencies such as the Office of Research Integrity more teeth and better funding. Another would be to stop relying so much on citations

as a metric of quality. Finally, they say scientific journals get rid of the so-called pay-for-play business model that quote, "'By charging researchers to publish their work "'has the effect of putting the veneer "'of legitimacy up for sale.'" But you know, with all that, whether you are in their work has the effect of putting the veneer of legitimacy up for sale. But you know, with all that, whether you are in or out of the world of research,

in or out of the world of academia, I'd love to know your thoughts here. So if you did leave a comment, I'd love to know if you do or do not have a background in this. But the final thing I wanna say here is like, this is not all to say that we shouldn't trust scientists because this, it is a very big problem,

but there are also countless qualified, well-meaning researchers putting out high quality work that could very well save any of our lives one day but that also doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to this if anything the changes need to be made to help them that my friends brings us to the end of today's show thank you for watching for more news you need to know i got you covered here and here make sure you're subscribed i love yo faces and i'll see you right back here tomorrow