Professors in Amsterdam manipulated data
A professor at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), Jens Förster, has manipulated data during research. The Executive Board has decided to withdraw an article from 2012, after an advice from the LOWI, the national institute for scientific integrity.
According the the LOWI, there is no doubt that the research is contaminated. The variety in the scores from the control group was so small that it could not be explained with sloppy science alone. Also, the researchers inadequately justified the data collection.
In 2012, the UvA installed an integrity committee, after a complaint about three articles by Förster. He wrote the article that is now found to be manipulated together with his colleague Markus Denzler. According to the complaint, the chance that the findings are actually accurate is 1 to 508 trillion. Besides that, not one of the subjects left the research prematurely, something that never happens during psychological experiments. The other two articles haven’t been judged jet, but according to the complainer, same errors can be found there.
