The Scientific Integrity Crisis with Dr. Elisabeth Bik

In a world where technology is constantly evolving and AI is everywhere, it’s all too easy for content to be deceitful, including scientific papers. Capturing source metadata, incentivizing reproducibility, and protecting whistleblowers are steps we can take to ensure science remains honest. In this episode, Satyen interviews Dr. Elisabeth Bik. Elisabeth is an experienced microbiologist whose groundbreaking work in scientific integrity has led to more than four thousand potential cases of improper research conduct. She also founded the blogs Microbiome Digest and Science Integrity Digest, and was awarded the John Maddox Prize for "outstanding work exposing widespread threats to research integrity in scientific papers" in 2021. Satyen and Elisabeth discuss image manipulation in scientific papers, the impact of AI on scientific integrity, and why paper mills must be stopped.