Pruitt research fraud
After a lengthy 3.5 year investigation, renowned McMaster University spider researcher (behavioural ecologist) Jonathan Pruitt has been found guilty of falsifying data in multiple major research papers by the university’s internal investigation committee. Pruitt was found to have “generally failed to meet the requirements expected of a tenured professor”. With 15 papers to his name retracted in the last 15 years, I’d have to agree. Research fraud is very bad, and I applaud the university for taking the matter seriously and handling this the way they did. There have been a lot of major research fraud scandals in the news lately, and McMaster seems to have done particularly well in handling this one.