Scientific misconduct on prevailing theories is too attractive

University of Delaware (UD) found one of its scientists guilty of research misconduct. She has committed fabrication and falsification in work on fish behavior and coral reefs. The university is going to retract three of her research papers, including one in the Science magazine, one of the leading scientific journals of the world.

The retracted papers reported worrisome results how Earth’s rising carbon dioxide levels would have dramatic effects on fish behavior and ecology. In other words, the results strongly supported the current fears of extremely harmful outcome of the climatic warming. 

It should be understood that - after this case - the scientific community should conduct a serious introspection about its practices. In this process a special attention should be put on the critical assessment on the results supporting the prevailing theories of each time. 

The scientific picture on each topic consists of theories from which testable hypotheses are derived. In this structure the most important feature is that even a single falsifying result may prove the hypothesis wrong - and as a consequence, also the theory behind that. 

However, when talking about prevailing and politically important theories - such as the global change - it is easy to note leading journals to eagerly publish reports that support such theories. Thus, for a dishonest researcher the most attractive way to advance her career is to report fictitious but worrisome reports on observations on the effects of the climatic change. Exactly that seems to have happened with the current case mentioned above.

Therefore I propose that manuscripts reporting highly expected - but dramatic - results on the most popular scientific theory of each time are considered with a special suspicion in both the review process as well as in editorial decisions. After all, as I noted above, they are not important for the scientific process compared to falsifying reports. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Heat wave in Europe contrasts with the coldness of the Arctic sea
Should forbidden questions be answered or not?
A new justification is needed for environmental activists