But wait, there is more. Birketvedt's resume is full of awards that it's impossible to verify (i.e. fixtional), and VGshows some example:
1999: International Woman of the Year. She first claimed to have gotten
this from "American Biography Association", but later "corrected" this to "The
International Biographical Centre of Cambridge i England"
1999-2000: Intellectuals of the Year. Later corrected to "Intellectuals of
the World".
1999-2000: Outstanding People of the 20th Century. Given to her by The
International Biographical Centre of Cambridge.
2000: Gold Medal in Science and Peace, Albert Schweitzer International
University. She later change the name of the medal to "Conmemorative Medal", but
still from the "prestigous" ASU...
She was featured as a diet expert in VG's "Vektklubben.no", and due to her suspicous resume, VG ended their co-operation with "dr" Briketvedt.
And there is even more. Her PhD is real enough, it's from 1995 in Tromsø. But one article, published in British Medical Journal, the editor was really suspicous about the content. However, acording to an interview with Dagbladet he couldn't prove that the data was fictitious, so he had to publish it. Nobody has later been able to reproduce the results from the article, and the conclusions have been deemed faulty.
I will follow this case and see what comes out of it.
Edit:
VG has done a follow up.
Check out the home page of the Albert Schweitzer International University for some fun reading. It even has links to more fake institutions!
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4 comments:
I especially loved how VG was really interested in getting in contact with people who'd been offered fake diplomas or degrees. By now their server ought to be overloaded, as pretty much anyone with a university email addy regularly gets spammed with "Buy your MSc or PhD diploma online from a prestigious university" emails.
So wait; does this mean that my honorary professoriate from the University of South Ucklahoma (U. S.Uck), my Ph.D. from Harfurd and my M.Sc. from the Immaculate Institute of Divine Technology in Dubai, India aren't worth anything?
She ain't an MD though, just your everyday, ordinary body mechanic aka GP - her only legitimate claim to the "Dr." title comes from her Ph.D.
And there is even more. Her PhD is real enough, it's from 1995 in Tromsø. But one article, published in British Medical Journal, the editor was really suspicous about the content. However, acording to an interview with Dagbladet he couldn't prove that the data was fictitious, so he had to publish it. Nobody has later been able to reproduce the results from the article, and the conclusions have been deemed faulty.
Not to suddenly become her spokesperson, but the sad fact is that the primary flaw of the peer review (and any other realistic)system lies in the reproducibility of science criterion. This is the part which is not feasible to really control, so if, for example, an experiment failed on 997 out of a thousand occasions, a dishonest researcher can still publish the successful experiment with error bars around the results. From personal experience, some pretty big names have published research that isn't reproducible unless you make some pretty drastic assumptions - like introducing the speed of light in a single medium as an independent variable.
I especially loved how VG was really interested in getting in contact with people who'd been offered fake diplomas or degrees. By now their server ought to be overloaded, as pretty much anyone with a university email addy regularly gets spammed with "Buy your MSc or PhD diploma online from a prestigious university" emails.
Yeah, I actually considered sending an e-mail to VG, but then I came to your conclusion. But "dr" Birketvedt got her honnorary professorship in 2000, and it think it was around that time the amount of such spam e-mails peaked. You gotta be real naive to think those degrees were real, 'cause those e-mails were the joke of the department.
Not to suddenly become her spokesperson, but the sad fact is that the primary flaw of the peer review (and any other realistic)system lies in the reproducibility of science criterion.
Yes, it isn't a perfect system. And it is perfectly legal to draw the wrong conclusion of your expermimental data and publish it. We're all humans, and mistakes happens. However, the big difference here is whether the faulty results/data are due to an error or deliberately constructed data. That can be a hard call to make.
But let's consider her track record. She has honorary professorate from a "fake" university, awards that can't be verified, and is accused of illegimate using an "overlege" or professor title. This leads me to one of two conclusions:
1. Her work ethics are low, and she is inclined to construct data to support her claims.
2. She's so stupid that her faulty conclusions/data is due to her incompetence.
But in all fairness, it could just be a bunch of unfortunate incidences, and that dr. Birketvedt is a serious scientist who's been slightly naive. But I will follow this case to see where it ends
...like introducing the speed of light in a single medium as an independent variable.
I hate it when that happens. Curses!
:-D
..you know it's a high-quality newspaper when they misspell "fabricated"
You gotta be real naive to think those degrees were real, 'cause those e-mails were the joke of the department.
No kiddin'. There's no way you can be daft enough to believe that these online fake degrees are the real thing if you're the least bit familiar with the higher educational system.
However, the big difference here is whether the faulty results/data are due to an error or deliberately constructed data. That can be a hard call to make.
Yup. Which leaves two possible mechanisms of retraction; 1) the authors reach the conclusion that they screwed up somehow and issue a retraction to the journal, and 2) enough people fail to reproduce the work and complain of this fact to the editor of the journal in question. Alternative 1 is the honorable solution, as everyone can make a mistake - what matters is how you deal with it once you discover that you screwed up. I know firsthand of someone who decided to retract a paper which had just been accepted in Science after they ran some experiments which suggested that the mechanism they proposed might have been wrong. Mucho props and respect for that.
Her work ethics are low, and she is inclined to construct data to support her claims.
..if she herself used, or accepted that collaborators such as VG used a title she didn't have - and you probably know whether you're a chief physician or not - then it's beyond doubt that her work ethic is dubious at best
..if she herself used, or accepted that collaborators such as VG used a title she didn't have - and you probably know whether you're a chief physician or not - then it's beyond doubt that her work ethic is dubious at best
Yes. Titles are important, and I alwasy makes sure that my formal title is correct at all times.
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