Botanist Steven Newmaster, whose controversial work profoundly influenced how dietary supplements are tested and marketed, did not engage in scientific misconduct, a University of Guelph investigation committee has ruled.
published in February, based on a review of thousands of pages of Newmaster’s work as well as his videos, PowerPoint presentations, and websites, revealed numerous other cases in which he appeared to manipulate or fabricate data, plagiarize, and invent elements of his academic record. Newmaster declined to comment for theToday’s letter to the complainants summarizes the panel’s conclusions but provides few details about its reasoning.
As a UG undergraduate working with Newmaster, Thompson was a co-author on the study of forest plants. Years later, Thompson realized Newmaster had never shown him the raw data or uploaded them to a data repository, as required. Newmaster and a colleague appeared to use records from an unrelated experiment in an unsuccessful effort to validate the work, according to the misconduct complaint. The journalretracted the paper in October 2021, citing several serious problems.
Thompson is particularly frustrated that the committee says the misconduct allegations are not supported because of “the absence of records and data. … That was the essence of our complaint,” he says. “We knew they wouldn’t be able to find records. Our complaint alleged that Prof. Newmaster falsified his work and never had the data to back it up. That’s really disappointing.”
“There’s a big question that we need to ask ourselves as scientists working in Canada,” Thompson adds. “Do we actually care about addressing misconduct?”
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
San Diego’s top weekend events: June 2-5: ‘Onward’ with Steven Schick, House of Mexico and moreSan Diego's top weekend events: June 2-5: 'Onward' with Steven Schick, House of Mexico and more
Read more »
The world's largest plant is a 112-mile-long seagrass in AustraliaA team of researchers from the University of Western Australia and Flinders University has discovered what they believe to be the largest plant on Earth.
Read more »
Jury finds Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann not guiltyA federal jury today found Michael Sussmann, an attorney for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, not guilty of lying to the FBI.
Read more »
1 killed, 2 injured in shooting outside New Orleans high school graduationOne person was killed and two others injured in a shooting Tuesday outside a high school graduation ceremony that had just concluded at Xavier University, New Orleans police said.
Read more »
Column: Live with a gun owner? Researchers say that makes you less safe“Living with a handgun owner is associated with substantially elevated risk for dying by homicide,” concludes a Stanford University study of nearly 18 million Californian adults over a 12-year period.
Read more »
An estimate of how many Americans have died from each COVID variantA new report from Yale University researchers estimates that nearly half of all Americans who died of COVID were infected by variants.
Read more »