Requested: Three-Day Data Fabrication Workshop

From: Jacob Keller
Date: 2 April 2012 16:15
Dear CCP4BB,

due to increasing demand, it seems we should put together a workshop on data fabrication, covering the various important topics (chaired by JHo):

--Images: the future of fabrication? How long can we rely on database Luddism?

--Ways out: how to leave a trail of "accidental" data mix-ups

--Publish large or small? Cost-benefit analyses of impact factor vs. risk of being discovered

--Pushing the envelope: how significant is two [sic] significant

--Crossing discipline boundaries: are data fabrication procedures universal?

--Build a better "hofkristallrat"-trap: utilization of rhetorical bombast and indignation in reply letters

--Break-out support-session with survivors: comforting words on careers after the fall

--Session on the inextricably-related topic of grammatical pedantry, to be followed by a soccer (football?) match Greeks Vs. Latins

Ample funding will be available from big pharma and other industry sectors

Please submit further topics to the CCP4BB list

JPK

ps I can't believe no one mentioned the loathsome Latino-Greek "multimer" in the recent curmudgeonry postings.

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From: David Schuller

On 04/02/12 11:15, Jacob Keller wrote:

Dear CCP4BB,

due to increasing demand, it seems we should put together a workshop on data fabrication, covering the various important topics (chaired by JHo):

...

--Break-out support-session with survivors: comforting words on careers after the fall

There's always economics.

--   

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From: James Kiefer
Dear Jacob,

With all due respect, you have left out a key component to successful
data fabrication in the modern age: software.  It is quite obtuse not
to have allocated at least one day of the workshop for practical
applications of Photoshop to diffraction image generation and at least
a passing coverage of whether or not Adobe Lightroom and
crystallographic presets therein will be sufficiently capable of
muddling the RCSB staff analysis of data feasibility checking.

I would very much like to see Gerard Bricogne present a keynote
lecture entitled something like, "The R-Fake Parameter: A Maximum
Likelihood Modulus to Define a Minimum Acceptable Data Drift
Coefficient for Use in the Fabrication of Credibly Artificial
Diffraction Data."

I also believe that we are perhaps full of hubris as a
crystallographic community, because an entire field of faked
structural data has existed long before crystallographers even
considered manufacturing their data.  Specifically,  the molecular
modeling community has already surpassed us in their thinking on the
subject.  While we idly discuss how to properly generate false data,
they have had the foresight to abandon ALL data...and even the
starting coordinates in crystal structures - be they real or
fictitious - and publish volumes of papers entirely unencumbered by
reality or plausibility.  My hat is off to them.

Best regards,
Jim

--

James Kiefer, Ph.D.

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From: Jacob Keller

Touche. I very humbly and sincerely hereby retract my previous post--pressured by the scientific community, I felt obligated to present something of worth to the community, and therefore completely dreamed up the whole conference. I hope I have not inconvenienced anyone who may have made arrangements for travel based on my previous posting.

JPK

--

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From: Gerard Bricogne
Dear James,

On Mon, Apr 02, 2012 at 08:39:41AM -0700, James Kiefer wrote:
> Dear Jacob,
>
> With all due respect, you have left out a key component to successful
> data fabrication in the modern age: software.  It is quite obtuse not
> to have allocated at least one day of the workshop for practical
> applications of Photoshop to diffraction image generation and at least
> a passing coverage of whether or not Adobe Lightroom and
> crystallographic presets therein will be sufficiently capable of
> muddling the RCSB staff analysis of data feasibility checking.
>
> I would very much like to see Gerard Bricogne present a keynote
> lecture entitled something like, "The R-Fake Parameter: A Maximum
> Likelihood Modulus to Define a Minimum Acceptable Data Drift
> Coefficient for Use in the Fabrication of Credibly Artificial
> Diffraction Data."

    Wait a minute ... I have indeed been trying to understand what types of
random processes would best model errors in actual data, but that is in
order to produce better likelihood functions to refine against raw data, not
to better fake errors in fabricated data ;-) - although of course ... .

    Your suggested title is very good! I will work on a talk, even if the
Workshop never happens.


    With best wishes,

         Gerard.

--

--

   =============

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From: Jacob Keller

Maybe we could have the workshop in Abilene?

JPK

--

*

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From: Pavel Afonine
Yep,

phenix.fake_f_obs

is available for use since April 22, 2011, but I made it such that it will only do "the right thing" in experienced hands -;) and I wouldn't teach it unless you sign a disclaimer -:)

It's good for developers though who want to do fully controllable numeric experiments to test ideas.

Pavel

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From: aaleshin
Dear James,
With all due respect, you have left out a key component to successful data fabrication in the modern age: THE MOLECULAR REPLACEMENT.
Since almost all new structures have more or less close homologues in PDB, a smart fabricator should use their experimental data as a template. It will be more difficult to detect than the data built from the calculated structural factors.

To prevent future fabrication attempts, we do not need submitting  detector images, partially processed structural data such as unmerged  structural factors would work, and they do not take that much space. The switch to the "new format"  could be done in no time....

Alex

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From: Lynn F. Ten Eyck

Given some of the etymological discussion, and the suggestion of economics as an alternative career, it would seem that the workshop should be held in either Italy or Greece.

Lynn Ten Eyck

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From: Bernhard Rupp (Hofkristallrat a.D.)

I wish to point out (because I remembered just now) that I offered a similar service after the Murthy scandal on this BB in August 2007:

http://www.ruppweb.org/new_comp/frame_maker.html

-          and JK proposed a value-added contribution.

See attached. Btw, Kim Henrick's analysis from 2007 still seems rather lucid to me.

Best, BR