Most “scientific” research is done at universities. There may have been a time when it was a sincere attempt, occasionally well done, to understand the world we live in, but that was before my time. In those days, professors were poorly paid but received, in exchange for teaching twelve or fifteen hours a week, the time to study phenomena of interest to them. They also received free access to university facilities, such as swimming pools and squash courts, and to university events such as concerts, plays, football and other sports games. As a last “goody” their children were given a free university education. It was a nice life, as long as money wasn’t your goal. 

Since most research was and is conducted at Universities, it is necessary to understand their structure. Universities employ administrators, faculty, students and ground crews, these latter being of lesser importance to this article. Faculty includes professors (full, associate and assistant) and instructors. Students include undergraduates and graduates. Graduates are frequently employed as assistants. In the past, research was important at major universities while instruction was emphasized at state and private colleges. This latter attitude was beautifully illustrated by Dr. Morgan of Austin Peay State College, now a university. Almost forty years ago he said to me, “Our job is to prepare students for life in the middle Tennessee area.” 

This attitude was not true at universities. Promotion and job security at universities was and is highly dependent on the publication of professional articles. The difference in the two approaches resulted in differences in work loads. Most college professors taught four or five three hour courses a week, resulting in their being in the classroom twelve or fifteen hours, the remainder of their workdays, theoretically, occupied with advising students, maintaining their expertise by reading professional articles and faculty meetings. The teaching load at research universities was, typically, two or three courses a week, with retention and promotion based on research publications.

Most of this research used white mice (or rats) or undergraduate college students. The results were then applied to life itself. This was considered serious research. No one ever questioned whether wild mice (or rats) would behave the same as those white relatives, or if people would behave the same, under similar treatment, as white mice did. Similarly, no one seemed to worry, at any serious level, if mature adults would behave the same as seventeen to nineteen-year old youth living on parental bounty. 

Some of the research I found humorous. In every university library there is a series of volumes, published annually, reporting masters and doctoral research conducted by students as a means of completing their Masters and Doctorate degrees. Some days, for enjoyment I would go in and read these excerpts. The only one I remember specifically, was one in which the distance a person would jump and their reaction, if pinched while waiting on a street corner. I believe the recipient of this profound research is now a professor.  

The election of President Kennedy began a change in this life, the change being accelerated by President Johnson. Hundreds of millions of dollars were given to universities to conduct research in which the government was interested. This resulted in a massive increase in the number of administrators, professors and graduate students, the latter being rewarded for conducting the research paid for by the government to the universities with Masters and Doctoral degrees. It also resulted in some interesting research. As one professor moaned in a professional journal, “The government is now paying us to conduct research we wouldn’t have considered worth doing in the past.”

But the problem of research integrity went beyond this. The government paid professors for doing the research it wanted AND obtaining the results it wanted. The first study that brought this to my attention was conducted by a university in, if I recall correctly, Iowa. The researchers proposed that their experimental classroom procedures would increase the intelligence of slum children. At a time when my salary as an associate professor was about twelve thousand dollars a year, they received several hundred thousand dollars to conduct this study. It worked. They tested the children every few months and found a steady increase in measured intelligence. When the study was concluded they received several hundred more thousand dollars to continue it, even to go to Europe to announce their procedures and results. It did not seem to occur to anyone financing or evaluating the work of these professors that if you gave the same children the same IQ test every few months over a period of a year that their IQ test scores might improve. 

Note that I have not mentioned the possibility of professors falsifying their data or lying about the results, but I have known that to happen.