方舟子的Blog

作者：饶毅
http://www.sciencenet.cn/u/饶毅/

美国《生物化学杂志》（JBC）是国际生物化学界享誉百年的主要杂志。近日，其编委会收到一封奇怪的电子邮件，投诉方是民（笔名方舟子）十四年前的论文。

投诉者给自己取名Yun Rao，号称是北京大学生命科学学院的教授，用gmail与杂志编委会联系（内容见附件）。

编委会发现，我也向他们证实：北京大学生命科学学院没有叫Yun Rao的教授。

编委会也发现方是民的论文没有造假。

国际科学界，不会让通过诬陷来抹黑的人得逞，这和中国目前的文化不同。

世无完人，方舟子肯定有错的时候。做错的时候，不妨批评。

但如果有谁相信捏造的谎言，一定是本身有问题。

投诉者以北大教授名义给重要杂志编委发出有问题的英文信件，是想让北大在国际同行面前出洋相？

投诉者不知道信件末尾“教授”如何规范排列，也不知道论文如果出现造假其后惩罚的常规做法和相关用词，竟然要正规机构“trash”一篇论文。

是投诉者造假、还是方是民造假，可能不是很难回答的问题？

投诉者编造自己的名字、工作单位和北大教授头衔，反映了什么，可能也不难辨别？
  
附

From: Rao Yun [rao.yun434@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:42 AM
Subject: A paper with fake data

Dear Editor:
   We read a paper entitled “RNA Polymerase II-associated Protein (RAP) 74 Binds Transcription Factor (TF) IIB and Blocks TFIIB-RAP30 Binding” published on Vol 271, No. 20, Issue of May 17, pp. 11703-11709, 1996, JBC. We suspect that the data in Figure 4B and 4C were artificially spelled out. By using a high resolution screen, it is very clear that there was one imprint line in the middle of the gel in Figure 4B, and two imprint lines in the gel in Figure 4C. The background difference can be seen if you adjust the whole image background. Therefore these two figures were manufactured. We would like to request your investigation and to ask the authors for explanation. Based on the case of the scientific misconduct, this paper should be trashed since such a kind of behavior is prohibited and should be regarded as artificially manufacturing data. We understand that sometimes a scientist may merge two gels into one figure. However, the merged two parts should be separately demo
nstrated. Unfortunately the authors merged two gels into one to mislead readers. Even worse, the authors used a box to group the two/three parts together as if all the lanes were from one gel. This is an obvious scientific misconduct.
We consider that such a kind of behavior damaged the reputation of the journal badly. We strongly request the journal to trash the paper and at the same time to report this scientific misconduct case to NIH and the institute of the authors.
We thank you for your attention to this issue and look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,

Yun Rao, Ph. D., Professor;
School of Life Sciences,
Peking University, Beijing, China.
Email: rao.yun434@gmail.com<mailto:rao.yun434@gmail.com>