Scientific Rigor

Any scientific study should follow the steps of the scientific method. Experimental data should be collected methodically, systematically, randomly, ethically and with minimum bias. The scientific community does research following a series of principles including integrity, objectivity and honesty, which constitute what is known as scientific rigor. Nowadays, a scientific finding is published after being evaluated by other researchers, in what is known as peer review. However, due to work and academic pressure researchers sometimes proceed inappropriately in what is known as scientific misconduct. There are several actions that can be considered scientific misconduct, among which are the falsification or fabrication of data, lack of ethics or plagiarism. The latter is described in the video shown below.

There are different methods to detect this kind of behaviour. To this end, the scientific community has created entities like the Office of Research Integrity, which ensures the integrity of the scientific production in the United States, trying to detect cases of scientific misconduct.