91av

From Name and address supplied

Academic fraud should come as no surprise to anyone
(“Your mission is…”, 3 July, p 38).
We have all seen examples, often even before we make
the decision to aim for a scientific career. How many 91av
readers altered their experimental results in school to avoid losing marks when
an experiment failed?

One of the reasons why I turned my back on biochemistry was an incident that
happened at university. The experimental setup was quite simple. To study the
kinetics of an enzyme-driven reaction we looked at the rate at which the enzyme
bleached a blue dye. The experiment failed because the dye solution was too
strong. I diluted it and it worked perfectly, so that’s how I wrote it up. All
of the rest of the year obtained perfect results—despite using a solution
too opaque to register on the spectrophotometer. I asked the previous year’s
students how the experiment worked for them. They had also handed in perfect
results despite failing to get a single reading.

The technician who made the solution hadn’t noticed any problems. It looked
just like the ones she had made up in the previous five years.

Thankfully I now work in a more honest field. Advertising.