Top all-time · #998
Leonid Schneider
Personal blog · forbetterscience.comsciencehealth
Leonid Schneider writes For Better Science, a personal blog at forbetterscience.com about science and health. Since 2017, 70 different Hacker News readers have linked it 94 times, most often “Chloroquine genius Didier Raoult to save the world from Covid-19?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
By Leonid Schneider, on research integrity, biomedical ethics and academic publishing
Most-linked posts?
- Chloroquine genius Didier Raoult to save the world from Covid-19?6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-03-27
- Dana-Farberications at Harvard University5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2024-01-21
- David Sabatini Tormented by Steaming Turds4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-08-21
- Reproducibility of Results in Medical and Biomedical Research3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-02-11
- Gregg Semenza: real Nobel Prize and unreal research data – For Better Science3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-10-17
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-10-30
- We arrived at Vitamin D as Covid-19 “cure”3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-10-30
- The full-service paper mill and its Chinese customers2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-22
- Student, Meet Bus2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-14
- Didier Raoult fraud: “Je ne regrette rien”2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-03-24
What Hacker News says?
I was the victim of a pretty bizarre super in-your-face academic theft. Someone snooped a half-finished draft of mine off GitHub and...actually got it published in a real journal: https://forbetterscience.com/2024/05/29/who-are-you-matthew-... In spite of having a full commit log (with GitHub verified commits!!!) of both the code AND the paper, both arxiv and the journal didn't seem to care or bother at all. Anyhow,…
Comment linking /2024/05/29/who-are-you-matthew-stephenson/
on “Fraud, so much fraud”Submitted Dana-Farberications at Harvard University as a story · 221 points
HN discussionEven worse than that, there's straight up research fraud from labs at big universities. Fraud that slips through peer review and then the journals and reviewers get out the pitchforks when it's pointed out. https://forbetterscience.com/
Comment linking /
on “My Resignation from the Intercept”Submitted Sputnik V: fraudulent clinical trial data as a story · 102 points
HN discussionIt's pretty easy to set things up to overcome this hurdle: say either the institute handles your enquiry in a scientifically honourable manner or you will contact one of the high profile muckrakers. The most entertainingly written such blog to my taste is Leonid Schneider's: https://forbetterscience.com/author/leonidschneider/ Most university administrators can see avoiding coverage like this is a good thing: https:…
Comment linking /2020/06/04/michael-hottiger-of-zurich-patron-of-biomedical-ethics/
on “Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?”Submitted A Book That Will Never Be Read as a story · 56 points
HN discussionYou are absolutely right. Furthermore, universities tend to require tons of publications to promote you. Things are spinning out of control. I know a few EU countries where the written norm is to need > 100 publications to qualify for a full professorship, with equally ridiculous requirements for associate and assistant positions. Obviously, this encourages and rewards completely broken practices. Many associate and…
Comment linking /
on “Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?”Submitted An unethical guide to 100.000 citations as a story · 24 points
HN discussionA Glassdoor-like site would be a great idea. Kind of related, https://forbetterscience.com reports lots of research frauds.
Comment linking /
on “Potential fabrication in research threatens the amyloid theory of Alzheimer’s”Submitted Serial academic fraudster steals medical, physics and computer science papers as a story · 9 points
HN discussionI was the victim of a pretty bizarre super in-your-face academic theft. Someone snooped a half-finished draft of mine off GitHub and...actually got it published in a real journal. https://forbetterscience.com/2023/10/30/stephensons-alternat... My institution completely brushed it off as a no problem, and said that it wasn't worth pursuing it at all. It was very traumatising (and still is). I lost all faith in academ…
Comment linking /2023/10/30/stephensons-alternative-universes/
on “Data sleuths who spotted research misconduct cleared of defamation”Submitted Didier Raoult fraud: “Je ne regrette rien” as a story · 6 points
HN discussionHere's the oldest article I can find on Leonid Schneider's blog, from 2015. https://forbetterscience.com/2015/10/28/is-frontiers-a-poten... It's about a group of journals optimised for sleazy publishing. The author claims he left research due to rampant fraud and went into cartoons and insulting the perpetrators instead. In 2021 the Wikipedia page on paper mills was created. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?titl…
Comment linking /2015/10/28/is-frontiers-a-potential-predatory-publisher/
on “Scientific fraud has become an 'industry,' analysis finds”Submitted Yubing Sun: contaminated science, Synchrotron fraud and citation scam (2019) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionRest assured it’s not just North America. https://forbetterscience.com/2020/03/26/chloroquine-genius-d...
Comment linking /2020/03/26/chloroquine-genius-didier-raoult-to-save-the-world-from-covid-19/
on “Cracking down on research fraud”Submitted David Sabatini Tormented by Steaming Turds as a story · 4 points
HN discussionIsn't the story eerily similar to the Macchiarini scandal at Karolinska from a few years ago? https://forbetterscience.com/2016/04/26/the-stem-cell-faith-... He also thought he could use adipose stem cells for implants but it didn't work and patients died. E.g if the new method causes implants not to be rejected that would indeed be a breakthrough, but many have tried and failed so one should be extremely skeptical…
Comment linking /2016/04/26/the-stem-cell-faith-healers-or-magic-inside-your-bone-marrow/
on “Israeli scientists develop tissue implants that won't be rejected”Submitted We arrived at Vitamin D as Covid-19 “cure” as a story · 4 points
HN discussionYou're right that we could already re-seed decellularized pig ECMs with human stem cells, but we have also already been able to derive stem cells from the stomach. I think the main claim that they're making is that by deriving both the ECM and the Stem cells from the patient, the resulting tissue engineering scaffold is less immunogenic than other methods. While this is somewhat interesting, they get into trouble by…
Comment linking /2016/12/21/birchalls-trachea-transplant-trial-at-ucl-suspended-by-health-authorities/
on “Israeli scientists develop tissue implants that won't be rejected”Submitted Chloroquine genius Didier Raoult to save the world from Covid-19? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHere's a short article with some more links about this person: https://forbetterscience.com/2024/05/03/schneider-shorts-3-0... Citation- and papermills are quite common and can be quite lucrative. Elsevier, Springer and the others don't really have anything to gain from stopping it.
Comment linking /2024/05/03/schneider-shorts-3-05-2024-no-data-came-from-a-paper-mill/
on “New head of one of the world’s oldest universities organized a citation cartel”Submitted Human Brain Project: bureaucratic success despite scientific failure as a story · 4 points
HN discussionDavid Sabatini was anointed a future Nobel Laureate by the university-academic complex. What's astonishing is that when his work was discovered to have silly photoshop manipulations, he reacted by calling (on Twitter) the people who caught him "steaming turds". https://forbetterscience.com/2020/01/29/david-sabatini-torme...
Comment linking /2020/01/29/david-sabatini-tormented-by-steaming-turds/
on “Dana-Farberications at Harvard University”Submitted Censorship in Bavaria around failed tracheal implants as a story · 4 points
HN discussionLeonid Schneider has some interesting background on Lang and Schmidt. https://forbetterscience.com/2022/06/17/schneider-shorts-17-...
Comment linking /2022/06/17/schneider-shorts-17-06-2022-once-again-macchiarini-walks-out-free-2/
on “Probiotics can support the effect of antidepressants”Submitted In bed with Hari and Aruna (2023) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe Taleb thing (going furter off topic) seems too reliant on an “efficient market.” I bet bad surgeons harm patients at a higher rate than good surgeons throw bad suregons out of the boat. https://forbetterscience.com/2016/02/21/macchiarini-and-karo...
Comment linking /2016/02/21/macchiarini-and-karolinska-the-biomedical-ethics-meltdown/
on “Myth of the Brown Recluse”Submitted Memorial Sloan Kettering Paper Mill as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt's not just Dana-Farber and that Alzheimer's lab. This type of fraud is endemic in biology. Occasionally it gets noticed. Behold, another identical thread on the same site about the scientists of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation from four years ago: https://forbetterscience.com/2020/01/20/the-wizard-men-curin... Featuring a scientist who was rumbled for image cloning, and then submitted still more Photoshoppe…
Comment linking /2020/01/20/the-wizard-men-curing-breast-cancer/
on “The blogger who spotted problems in Dana-Farber cancer papers”Submitted Dana-Farberications at Harvard University as a story · 3 points
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