10 years ago today, For Better Science faced the world with this article:

So much happened since! So many articles published! (around one thousand one hundred and forty, and boy, are some of them long…) I met many amazing people from inside of the academic community and from the outside of it, people with actual knowledge and real integrity, including many incredibly talented and dedicated sleuths. Quite some of them contributed to For Better Science as authors with guest posts, several became regular writers. Other readers contacted me with evidence and information, and what effect the resulting reporting had! Yet others donated money, every little counts and is most appreciated. Thank you all!

Together, we achieved a lot. And we will achieve much more.

Others pride themselves to be “exclusive”, but For Better Science is inclusive, it is a community project. Everyone is welcome, and everyone is invited to contribute. Get in touch!

To celebrate the successful first decade of For Better Science, its amazing contributors kindly contributed the following contributions:

• A light in the darkness – from Prof Patricia Murray
• Most heinous of all – from Sholto David
• Better than Nature and Science – from Aneurus Inconstans
• Feeling heard – from Mu Yang
• Give it a try – from Parashorea Tomentella
• Most wonderful community – from Alexander Magazinov
• A brutal force – from Dayo Maor
• There is a silver lining – from Marten van Kampen
• It’s astounding, Time is fleeting – from Smut Clyde aka David Bimler

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A light in the darkness

From Prof Patricia Murray

My first email exchange with Leonid was on Christmas Day 2016. I had recently watched Bosse Lindquist’s documentary about Paolo Macchiarini and the terrible suffering endured by patients subjected to plastic trachea transplants. It aired in the UK in October 2016.

A little before that, in September 2016, I had heard University College London’s Professor Martin Birchall speak about so-called stem cell–engineered cadaveric trachea transplants. Birchall and Macchiarini were close collaborators at the time. The first patient to receive one of their cadaveric tracheas was Claudia Castillo. Her transplant was hailed as a major breakthrough and celebrated by media around the world.

Birchall’s talk struck me as odd. Although it was likely not his intention, it seemed to cast doubt on the supposed success of those transplants. Birchall even included a screenshot from a story Leonid had just published on For Better Science called “How UCL throat surgeon Martin Birchall misleads patients and tricks public funders.”

The documentary and Birchall’s talk made me question whether the patient abuse and research fraud had in fact begun with the case of Claudia Castillo in 2008. Searching online, I found another of Leonid’s articles—Claudia’s Trachea—which made it clear that Castillo’s transplant had not gone well. That story prompted me to contact Leonid.

It is thanks to his relentless efforts that clinical trials based on Birchall and Macchiarini’s fraudulent research did not go ahead in the UK and EU as planned. Leonid’s investigative work has prevented the further abuse of patients and, in all likelihood, saved lives. He has received little recognition for this, and instead has often faced legal threats and personal attacks. Yet he continues.

Leonid has spent a decade standing up for truth, integrity, and humanity in science—often at great personal cost. The world of research and medicine owes him more than it knows.

Here’s to ten years of For Better Science—a light in the darkness, and proof that one determined voice can make a real difference.

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Most heinous of all

From Sholto David

BREAKING NEWS! Ten whole years of the deranged criminal Leonid Schneider and his criminal network ¹. Incredible that he made it this far given that Schneider appears to have no established career in either science, or science journalism ².

Sadly, it’s all too easy to make baseless accusations, which Schneider seems to do so happily ². Even worse, For Better Science is known to host material that is misogynistic, puerile, and most heinous of all, snarky! ⁴.

Nobel prize winner Thomas Südhof has documented that the criticisms hosted on For Better Science are, in fact, innumerable! An intolerable situation, especially as this scrutiny comes from commentors outside of the scientific community ³.

Frustratingly, even though no one reads For Better Science, and no one sends Schneider any material, (since he is also extremely rude even when you send him material) ², people still mysteriously become aware of the content published on Schneider’s pages.

It would be better if the international community would follow the lead of Italy and simply ban For Better Science at the domain level. But in any case, for Schneider, continuing to host For Better Science is a critical misstep that confirms his guilt and escalates his legal exposure ¹.

Happy birthday!

Very loosely paraphrased from important members of the scientific community.

1. Sci-Guardians.
2. ThisComplexLife.
3. Nobel Prize Winner Thomas Südhof’s integrity page.
4. A research integrity officer at DFCI.

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Better than Nature and Science

From Aneurus Inconstans

I can’t help but think not even the Heavenly City could cause you, dear readers, greater ecstasy than the seduction of knowledge.
In this ark of science, in this temple of wisdom that is For Better Science, the knowledge handed out here is genuine although it deals with fakeries. To some extent, reading For Better Science is better than having a subscription to Nature and Science. And it’s for free.

I wish to believe For Better Science provides you with some illuminating examples of how established and early career researchers are falsifying data that may soon be arriving on your desk in the next manuscript you are called upon to review. Or more modestly, all this will push someone to finally download the PubPeer plug-in that will alert on problematic data.

What makes For Better Science truly special is its ability to report in advance respect to anyone else the existence, development and probable outcome of scientific frauds perpetrated through old and new trends: serial fraudsters, papermills, citation plantations, affiliation trading, industry giants scams,
fraudulent biotech start-ups, and all the rest.

I wish one day some intrepid IT expert would help digging out from the over 1100 For Better Science pieces all the information embedded in this encyclopedia of knowledge to create the For Better Science Database, for having a more
accessible way to list problematic names across topics.

Happy birthday dear For Better Science. Cheers!

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Feeling heard

From Mu Yang

Almost exactly 5 years ago (For Better Science was halfway through its 10 years journey, unbeknownst to me), Leonid called me as I was halfway on a run along the Hudson river. After the phone call, I remembered staring at the rippling water and feeling HEARD (＾▽＾)!, for the first time, since I started working on my first case in February of 2020. The second half of my run felt light and happy (•‿•) —- Someone (I had no idea who Leonid was at the time) is going to TALK about it!! Two days later, this article came out. Immediately, I was told that I was NOT supposed to like or contribute to For Better Science. I stuck around anyway — it is a gut feeling sort of thing. The guy behind For Better Science is genuine, razor-sharp smart, and KIND (!!!) (=^･^=) . Along the way, when people were unkind/unjust to me about my sleuthing, Leonid has always been there (╥_╥). Happy 10th, For Better Science! (￣▽￣)ノ

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Give it a try

From Parashorea Tomentella

Shortly after I began focusing on scholarly integrity, For Better Science released “The Full-Service Paper Mill” (though this timing sounds too coincidental). At that time, as a reader, I realized I might be able to contribute something, so I went ahead and did it. I particularly appreciate Leonid’s willingness to help many people post their original discoveries on For Better Science. Writing isn’t easy, but the first few attempts are okay. I find myself—especially when drafting—seeing only what I’ve gathered right before my eyes. But the enthusiasm of other contributors has helped me break through this barrier. While some contributors are absolutely fantastic, the contributions of many more can make for a better blog for readers. It feels great to have people who take scholarly integrity seriously as your audience—give it a try.

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Most wonderful community

From Alexander Magazinov

It is almost unbelievable, but For Better Science is 10 years old! As a reader since 2018 and a contributor since 2022, I congratulate Leonid for having built and running this great site, writing great stories. I also congratulate my fellow contributors, my fellow commentators and my fellow readers, with whom we ARE the For Better Science community, the most wonderful of all.

Last, but not least, I congratulate the heroes of For Better Science stories, devil counts them all. For my part, I am sending hugs to, for instance, Rafa Luque, Chris Sonne, Mo Taheri and Grzesiek Krolczyk. And pretty sure, for Leonid, the first one in line would surely be Paolo Macchiarini. If not for this site, they would have lived their boring life of the rich, but now they deservedly turned into stupid zombie clowns.

We are not putting “exclusive” labels on next to anything, sometimes we get upset about not being credited. Sometimes our writing has immediate effect, and sometimes it stays only for future generations to learn about our strange times. Most important: we are here and we are not going anywhere. Cheers! 

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A brutal force

From Dayo Maor

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Leonid’s fight had ended in complete victory. Would he be happy that science was finally better, or would he feel lost, knowing his mission was over?

Sadly, this question remains purely theoretical. His ten years of effort were not in vain, but only the very tip of the fraud iceberg has been exposed. We may be witnessing the final days of modern academic publishing if journals become overwhelmed by mass-produced fakes. The rise of the anti-science movement is, at least in part, a consequence of academia’s failure to clean up its own house.
External help has proven to be in high demand. It is a failure of institutional science that Leonid’s blog continues to publish new exposés every week. Leonid is a brutal force, unstoppable and fearless. He narrowly missed brilliant opportunities to be imprisoned for exposing research fraud, yet he never gave up the fight.

I hope Leonid continues his mission for another ten years—or as long as it takes.

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There is a silver lining

From Marten van Kampen

For Better Science, congratulations with your 10th anniversary!

I first met you when you were just a few years old, in the time that Paolo Macchiarini story was dominating your pages. Back then I refused to believe that this scale of institutional cover-ups could exist in academia. And that scientific journals would refuse retracting fraud. I got hooked on your stories, in the same way that one gets fascinated by true crime. And these stories are dire: journals and even research fields that get overrun by fraud, whilst inaction and looking away are the norm rather than the exception. I am a stubborn optimist and would rather not believe this all. Except that you lured me into sleuthing and I got to experience this myself, time after time. There is a silver lining: since 2021 you publish a weekly Shorts that has grown into proper Pants. And with the current rate of demise it will not take long before you publish a weekly Jumpsuit.

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It’s astounding, Time is fleeting

From Smut Clyde

Tempus fugitive! I consulted the Akashic Records to see how long ago was my first guest-post in For Better Science, only to learn that eight years have rolled past since it appeared. That seems to make me Leonid’s first recruit to the ‘usual gang of idiots’ who now contribute and facilitate his misguided, regrettable activities.

Eight years ago I was commenting at PubPeer and posting sporadically at my own blog Eusa-riddled about random manifestations of fake science that lent themselves to absurdist humour, so not a lot of persuasion was required… For Better Science was an opportunity to add an even smaller audience to the dozen or so readers who visited Riddled. All the material for a guest-post were already on hand, only some assembly required. The post dwelled on the eternal ambition of scientists to make mice autistic; this time using vaccine adjuvants, and published in a journal of inorganic chemistry to be sure that none of the readers or reviewers knew what mouse behaviour or the methods of biomedicine should actually look like.

Blame for introducing me to the whole ecosystem of shite-science falls upon Jeffrey Beall with his predatory-publishing reportage, and on the predatory publishers themselves who bombarded my in-box with material for absurdist humour in the form of their obsequious solicitations for manuscripts and money. But my own Origin Story is not germane here.

Eight years ago we were naive and idealistic; and optimistic enough to believe that the triumph of Endarkenment might be slightly delayed using our three chief weapons of flyting, and a Teutonic degree of pedantry, and ruthless gutter invective, and an almost fanatical devotion to understanding the real world rather than fantasies. That is how ‘Andrew’ could confidently argue in a comment that the post’s target was ill-chosen because antivaccination is a spent force, and vaccination rates will continue to rise.

It may be that we underestimated the scale of the parallel, parasitical edifice of nescience that had grown up to profit from the resources and the credence that the scientific endeavour still attracts in many countries. We shared a unspoken assumption that Yes, the parts of Sciencing that we dwell on are irredeemably corrupt (like nanotechnology, and biomedicine – especially noncoding RNAs); but only because like banks, they’re where the money is… in contrast, the quest for knowledge and the gentlemanly ideals of Amateurism still prevail in less-funded realms of scholarship. It followed that papermill image fabrication and recycling would be limited to Western Blots, Flow Cytometry scatterplots and histograms, confocal microscopy and Transwell panels – with occasional electron microscopy to avoid boredom.

Alas, it turns out that for any X, if there exist people who are researching X, then there are people making up evidence that they also research X (while publishing twice as frequently because they don’t waste resources doing actual experiments). The last eight years could be chronicled as a progressive broadening of scope, with the growing awareness of all the other forms of evidence that the science malefactors are happy to fake. Cut-&-paste-assembled Frankenspectra! Hand-drawn FTIR spectra! Made-up mouse-movement tracks! EDX spectra inspired by Gaudi’s skyscraper sketch!

This is how For Better Science became a large tent with many contributors. The sheer number of merchants of merde demands all the voices to ridicule them. Now FBS is a stepping-stone on the path to fame and glory, or at least to being designated with a Perpetrator Number by the merde-merchant-defending mercenaries at Science Guerdons (or Gordians, or whatever).

I mustn’t forget the wider demimonde of para-scholarship where collective science-shaped activities go on… involving (for example) bestiary-themed optimiser algorithms, and nanofluid heat transfer, and fluffy logic, and theoretical perovshites. Within each hortus conclusus a familiar circensis personae do their cargo-cult best to look all sciency, churning out paper-shaped texts through their own journal-shaped publication conduits while avoiding the danger of a harsh and possibly terminal encounter with the real world.

Thus concludeth the Manifesto part of this Manifestschrift. For the Festschrift part it remains to pay tribute to our host’s personality. That requires words like ‘combative’, ‘abrasive’, ‘confrontational’ and ‘rebarbative’ (a word I do not use often enough, which totally does not mean ‘wearing a second-hand beard’). Suffice to say that Leonid does not score highly on the ‘optimism’ part but he still has ‘idealistic’: any hint of pragmatic compromise with the side of darkness will earn you nothing but lumps of coal in your Yuletime stocking.

An entertaining Antifestschrift could be collated by inviting the testimony of people whose interactions with Leonid escalated quickly. A project for the 20-year anniversary!

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