PI Telling Me to Falsify Data

[doc totipotent]

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Yeah, scientific dishonesty is pretty serious stuff. Did your PI just "suggest" it indirectly, or did he flat out tell you? Either way though, you shouldn't do it. The gains that you could get now, even though they may be immediate and nice, will definitely not be worth it in the future.

You might not think you'll get caught, but what if your PI does this often with students/post-docs? That raises the chances that he/she will be caught eventually, and when that happens, their work will become a lot more scrutinized all of a sudden. And then they could find your fudged numbers. But aside from the whole notion of not doing it because you're scared of getting caught, it's just flat out wrong to do. Research is about furthering science, not leading it down wrong paths knowingly.

 

[fMRI]

1) Get a reference letter from him now. You can then take this to the professor of your choice to write a reference letter for you in case this turns sour.

2) Get on record that he asked you to falsify data, but you might want to tread carefully on this. Maybe you have a cool dean or some administrator you can talk about this. Most schools have an in-house legal department (they take care of patent rights etc.) -- talk to them, off the record and get their advice.

3) You don't want to find yourself in the spotlight of places like...
Audrey Blumsohn's Blog:
http://scientific-misconduct.blogspot.com/


Sorry this b*stard puts you in a difficult situation. He should be leading by example, not make you worry about the scientific status of your contribution to a project.

 

[Food]

probably misunderstood the P.I. Or the P.I. is a *******. Is he foreign? dam foreigners.