A topic's importance may be easily discounted if it remains on the fringe. But sociologists know that, once it becomes the topic of mainstream discussion -- frequently in the news, a subject of study, a source of government attention -- it’s no longer possible to pooh-pooh them as the concerns of hysterics or crazies -- or to hide one’s head in the sand and hope it goes away. And when things reach the level of satire -- well, Mark Twain was not exactly talking about a few isolated incidents or individuals in Huckleberry Finn. Satire is the vehicle for things that have become institutionalized.

So enjoy the two funny but sobering commentaries, here [2] and here [3], on the increasingly sorry moral state of our research enterprise. And consider the context in which both were written: that the majority of retractions in research are due to misconduct, not error [4]; and that replication, science’s gold standard, is increasingly elusive in psychiatry, psychology [5], cancer [6] and many other fields.  I received a little pushback on my recent post about conflict of interest as an addiction [2], so now feel gentle in comparison, and somewhat vindicated. It is becoming difficult to know what else to call it. Oh yes; as one of the satirists—and I in my first post [7]—say:  a choice.