I was a finalist at the 2017 ISEF and it was quite an experience. A lot of super smart kids there and we all had fun living it up in Los Angeles.<p>There was a stark contrast between those of us who had designed our projects completely ourselves, and those who had significant mentors/lab affiliations. No hate to high schoolers getting valuable STEM experience at local universities, but Regeneron should do more to differentiate between these different projects.
>Everyone makes mistakes — Lord knows I did plenty of stupid, immoral things when I was 17 — and there is always the opportunity for growth and redemption.<p>when did the definition of 'mistake' change to encompass actions done on purpose? a mistake is when your data is invalid because you did the math wrong, not when all your data is simultaneously false and plagiarized.<p>i don't mean to disagree with the notion that his entire life shouldn't be ruined over one incident at a science fair when he's a teenager, but let's not make it sound like this is a careless blunder that could happen to anybody.
My kids attended the same high school district that this student's school, Canyon Crest Academy (CCA), is part of. My youngest has friends that attended CCA and I asked him once why he didn't want to attend (it's an open school district) -- his reply is "all they do is study for AP tests."
So I'm thinking there might be other pressures (i.e. parental) to perform, and this student may have responded in a desperate fashion.
When I was 16 I did a project on whether plants could be used to remove heavy metals from soil. I don’t know why I did this but I did a nitrate test on the plants (because I had been putting lead nitrate into the soil) and drew the conclusion that it must’ve worked.<p>About 2 weeks before the city science fair I realized my error (none of my teachers had said anything).<p>So in an attempt to lose, I made my backboard as bad as possible. I didn’t use scissors or glue, I just tore the paper and used masking tape.<p>Long story short, I have no idea how, but despite my best efforts, I won the city science fair including an HP-48 graphing calculator and a trip to the state science fair.<p>At the state science fair my backboard (you had to use the same one as the city contest) was mocked by much more studious 8-year olds. I found out that teachers weren’t allowed in the exhibition hall so I just abandoned my space and went to the beach.<p>I did not win the state science fair.
One of the details that strike me is that the cheater comes from a fairly wealthy background and has no need for that prize money at all. They have much more to lose than gain and this doesn’t seem rational at all.
In reading this, I am reminded of a YouTube video by CGP Grey about how anger is more viral than any other emotional reaction online, including love. But then I think, isn't this one of those times where at least some level of annoyance is justified?<p>Except, there's nothing I can do about it. Does making more people aware, that can't do anything about it, improve the situation? Or is awareness pointless because of how transient it is?<p>And, what if the next great filter isn't great, but a series of smaller exponential filters pulled into a tight timeframe by the advancement of technology?<p>I probably just need more sleep.
I wrote an earlier reply to someone about how all I learned from the several mandatory ethics courses is that the people who cheat tend to be winners even after their punishment, if any.<p>I bet that even after all this, that kid will still be better off having cheated than not.
> The image boxed in red above is a falsified image taken from online, and has had mirroring performed in the hopes that no one would notice.<p>This probably won't happen in the future... because future competitors will learn from this mistake and know to run their image generation through AI so that their images are "novel"...<p>> Don't mentors have to sign off along the way? That part I don't get...<p>Can someone explain this? Is it plausible the mentors genuinely had no idea?
That's not only scientific fraud, it's real felony fraud.<p>Maybe community service equivalent to 50,000.00 at federal minimum wage would sort him out.
Science fairs always have hints of fraud around them. Many of the children putting out incredibly advanced research, beyond their capacity, are benefiting from their parents’ expertise, or friends of family, or access to labs, and such. It’s not talked about much but has been an issue for decades.<p>As a side note, the criticism around this incident seems to have some racial tones. It’s weird to see tweets referring to participants as the “Indian guy” and “Chinese guy”. Or is that just me?
Isn't this equally embarrassing for the people that decided to award him? I mean just looking at those images or even imagining the sort of research and equipment that would take to achieve something like this, shouldn't have raised red flags easily?
Source, "Open Letter to Regeneron ISEF": <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e4vjzp6JgClCFXkbNOweXZnoRnGWcM6vHeglDH1DmGM/edit" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e4vjzp6JgClCFXkbNOweXZno...</a>
> These actions, while serious, should not define Pai’s entire life<p>Too late for that. Very late. Unluckily his mind is set on pretending too much. Which is ubiquitous and actually encouraged in life to a great degree (not like this should be an excuse for adapting).<p>What is not late is to seek a different career in life. Be an influencer, praised youtuber or a political adviser perhaps, but the science world needs much different mindset. His reputation is annihilated by himself beyond repair anyway. The useful side of the story: be it a learning experience for the others.
This is pretty similar to some fraud in professional science that's more common than it should be. A few people have started to make it a hobby to detect copy-and-pasted and altered images in published research:<p>Fabrication discovered in prominent Alzheimer's research: <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease" rel="nofollow">https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabricatio...</a><p>"Sleuths" uncovering fraud and getting retractions for thousands of papers: <a href="https://apnews.com/article/danafarber-cancer-scandal-harvard-sleuth-science-389dc2464f25bca736183607bc57415c" rel="nofollow">https://apnews.com/article/danafarber-cancer-scandal-harvard...</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/how-a-sharp-eyed-scientist-became-biologys-image-detective" rel="nofollow">https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/how-a-sharp-eyed-...</a> and <a href="https://retractionwatch.com/2022/07/22/papers-in-croce-case-with-blatantly-obvious-problems-still-arent-retracted-after-misconduct-investigation-sleuth/" rel="nofollow">https://retractionwatch.com/2022/07/22/papers-in-croce-case-...</a><p>So I'm dismayed but not surprised that the incentives driving fraud in research science are trickling down into pre-college science fairs. A cynical person might conclude that we're just training the next generation of scientists to be better at fraud.
Many, many years ago I participated in ISEF, so this is personally disappointing to me. I'll echo some of the sibling comments about the difference between kids who did the project alone versus parents/lab mentors who ... ahem ... contributed <i>significantly</i> to the project. In contrast, my project was entirely self-made and therefore not very impressive, but it had some gimmicks in how I presented it which managed to impress judges at the school and regional levels, enough to send me to ISEF.<p>ISEF was an amazing experience, especially as a kid from a school that was nothing special. Our school was so excited that they hired a public speaking specialist to work with me to prepare. Looking back, that training in public speaking directly contributed to many successes in my career decades down the line. Plus the experience of going to ISEF still brings back positive memories. I never felt like I belonged - there were some amazingly smart kids there - but the social camaraderie and the ability to meet kids that thought it was cool to be smart was eye opening.<p>As far as "making mistakes when you're 17" - yeah, I made mistakes then too, but I certainly paid the price for them. <i>Especially</i> when you make conscious decisions to defraud and falsify, if these allegations can be proven. There should be serious consequences for this.
The elephant in the room is that 17 years old should not be writing long scientific articles witha lot of supporting material. They are not paid for that and they are expected to study first.<p>We should definitely expect to see short, brilliant discoveries from teenagers when they notice a gem in a heap of data adults discarded.<p>But not that kind of bureaqucratic nightmare style scientific papers where the result is attained mostly through prespiration, not inspiration. 100% great for already learned and paid adults, being fraud or exploitation of adolescents.
I will take the liberty to expreas my most profound cynicism. Didn't Google fake some of its AI showcases recently? Didn't Apple fake stuff about their iPhone on some presentation? I believe this goes beyond a young person "mistake". And no. It's not just to the universities. There are plenty of institutions involved. There are commercial successes from technology corporations to take inspiration from. The lack of consequences stems from a judicial power that's made in an extreme conservative set of rules. So, everything is on fire. Or should be. And don't get me started on research journals and editorials...
I'm baffled by the idea of making science competition with so much prize money for teenagers. For me it's antithetic with the goal of scientific research and can only fail in the long term. As a side note, the real responsible here is not the tennagers, but the organizers that didn't manage to catch a fraud so obvious
It's frustrating that we encourage fraudulent behavior for the college application process. I blame the judges, and college admissions departments.<p>It orients the entire USA public education system around training sociopathic behavior into teenagers.<p>We tell young people the best way to get ahead in life is through exaggerating. Then we train them to do it in their college essays and extracurriculars.<p>Gross.
Sadly he actually has a big chance to survive and strive in today's science community, as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis</a>.