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Comment by uvdiv | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of a case in Europe, where a PhD chemist was found to have faked/fabricated large parts of his graduate work, including his thesis. (It was on Derek Lowe's blog, pipeline.corante.com, and other places). He used Switzerland's ridiculous privacy laws to C&D journals, papers not to disclose his name in connection with the university investigation. (Or something like that, I'm not a lawyer). So he got off scot-free, and now he works in investment banking.

edit: Here's the story

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/09/25/faked_data_a...

primaries,

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/87/i39/8739news4.html

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/09/fake-data-...

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"Switzerland's ridiculous privacy laws"

You mean those "ridiculous" kind of laws where peoples privacy is protected against media-exploitation during that equally ridiculous "presumption of innocence" bit that is part of due process?

Those silly Swiss, not to allow mere allegations to destroy peoples lives. Way better to humiliate people by parading them in front of the world press, and make sure their careers are destroyed without having to bother with silly stuff like facts and evidence, the way they do things in the US.

This has nothing to due with due process if the the fraudster is forever permitted to C&D anyone who mentions his name.

+1 to parent.

Grandparent needs to read more.

"and now he works in investment banking."

That's one hell of a punchline. Is that serious, or is that just a grim joke? Because sadly it's right smack in the middle of Poe's Law territory.

No, it's extremely funny but it's true.

The Ph.D. student at the time left research after receiving his degree and now works as an analyst for an international bank.

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/09/fake-data-...

The Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger reports that the doctoral student has left chemical research to become a financial analyst with the bank UBS. C&EN was unable to reach the former student at press time.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/87/i39/8739news4.html

> So he got off scot-free, and now he works in investment banking.

That makes absolutely sense.

So no one knows his name? What about newspapers outside Switzerland?

> this person's lab notebooks have turned up missing, and are the only primary sources for the whole affair that can't be found

Not to condone what he did, but this is one of the reasons I don't keep any physical lab notebooks (scan, encrypt, and shred). Don't want people accessing/confiscating them without my consent.

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