Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis is an investigative journalist who writes about history and science for Mediapart. The author of several books on science and technology, he has a doctorate in biology and has worked as a researcher in a biomedical laboratory.
Part exposé and part manifesto…No time should be lost confronting the kinds of misconduct outlined in Fraud in the Lab and reaffirming the ideals of scientific inquiry. * Wall Street Journal * This bracing critical analysis…skewers the ‘publish or perish’ lab culture driving scientific fraud…Shows the serious, real-life impacts of ‘data beautification,’ manipulated images, and plagiarism. * Nature * Sees journalist Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis, a former lab researcher, investigate cases of deception in science, from made-up data and manipulated results to retouching and plagiarism. * New Scientist * Fraud in the Lab has an analytic structure that builds a patient case. -- Philip Kitcher * Los Angeles Review of Books * Chevassus-au-Louis charts some of the more egregious examples of recent scientific deceit: plagiarism, manipulated results, outright falsification. The problem, he argues, is that the intense pressure on scientists today—to ‘publish or perish’—is corrupting the culture of science and positively incentivizing misconduct and dishonesty. -- Nick Spencer * The Tablet * A convincing, concise, and critical analysis of the growing cases of deviant science, from botched experiments to data embellishment and outright fabrication. -- Yves Gingras, author of <i>Bibliometrics and Research Evaluation: Uses and Abuses</i> Fraud in the Lab makes a convincing case that today’s scientific culture, emphasizing speed and quantity of publication, breeds fraud and secrecy, destroys lives, and cheats society. Chevassus-au-Louis advocates a responsibility to turn to slow science, emphasizing the quality of both thinking and evidence, as the path to better science for a better world. -- Anne Tsui, Cofounder, Responsible Research in Business and Management Tackles the issue of scientific fraud head-on, with some tough love for the scientific community. The book should be read by everyone interested in the sciences. -- Matthew Wills * JSTOR Daily * A disturbing account on fraud or, more broadly, on misconduct within the scientific community. -- Marcel Herbst * European Legacy * Offers anyone interested in scientific integrity and research misconduct an excellent point of entry into the field, enabling them to identify the relevant themes, the most high-profile cases, and the way in which scientists handle research misconduct (or not). These are all essential elements for approaching scientific integrity and research misconduct as a field of research. -- Olivier Leclerc * Metascience *