There are a lot of scientific studies on the cat. They have influence on the public and particularly politicians, our lawmakers. They are often referred to in newspapers. I don’t believe they can automatically be trusted. They don’t necessarily provide valuable insights into the domestic, stray, feral and wild cats. They can mislead. For a start there are biased scientists. They distort their findings. This goes against the whole purpose of scientific research which is to objectively find new information. Scientific research should be precise, clever, novel and totally unbiased. Sadly, it is not always like that based upon an analysis of 120 scientific papers on cancer research. I know that cancer research is a million miles from cat studies but identical principles are involved.
Scientists in Norway discovered that one in four (25%) scientific papers published in cancer journals in 2013 contained copied material. This could lead to the dissemination of incorrect information.
Morten Oksvold of Oslo University Hospital said that the findings suggested that scientists faced problems with a…
“lack of credibility in scientific publications” that might not be limited to cancer research…If no action is taken, it seems clear that over time the public confidence in science and research could entirely erode away.”
The findings indicated that about half of the defective research papers (about 12% overall) had presented data from one experiment as though it belonged to another, while some of the authors appeared to have copied data from other journals.
“These duplications are particularly problematic since they seem to be falsifications”.
Stephen Evans, a professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said he was worried that the degree of deception by scientists was much higher than had been previously acknowledged by scientists.
As I stated in the opening paragraph, there are many studies on the cat. We know that some are biased. We don’t know whether any others are. We should be cautious about accepting them as fact. Often scientific papers are about the impact of the domestic and feral cat on native species. In light of the high level of fraudulent behavior by scientists in respect of cancer papers we should question the findings of any research into cat predation or on any other subject. I am not saying that scientific papers about cats should be ignored. They should simply be questioned.
I think you’re probably correct in the assumption that they were using the material to get their paper published, thinking no one would be the wiser. It makes me wonder if these papers are ever checked against work already done. Seems like it would be easy to do this research with Google.
When I look at scientific statements, I look at who did the research. I also “follow the money” to see who might benefit from the results of the research. For example when studies are cited that cats are decimating the bird population, it helps to know whose doing the research, and to keep in mind other factors that are being ignored.
I’ve seen statements on research done by pet food companies that are clearly a way to influence people to buy their food.
Right now research is being done to find salmonella in raw pet food (not canned or dry). This is obviously an attempt to prove that raw pet food is harmful, while completely ignoring the fact that almost all the recalls
involve canned or dry pet food, not raw. But, unfortunately people will be swayed by this biased study.
Yes, good thinking Sandy. Bias in scientific reporting is not uncommon but what surprised me was the out-and-out fraudulent behavior of scientists in copying the material of others and using it in the wrong context. I presume that what they cared about was simply getting a paper published to advance their career. Whether it was accurate or not was secondary.