Dear Jacob, With all due respect, you have left out a key component to successful data fabrication in the modern age: software. It is quite obtuse not to have allocated at least one day of the workshop for practical applications of Photoshop to diffraction image generation and at least a passing coverage of whether or not Adobe Lightroom and crystallographic presets therein will be sufficiently capable of muddling the RCSB staff analysis of data feasibility checking.
I would very much like to see Gerard Bricogne present a keynote lecture entitled something like, "The R-Fake Parameter: A Maximum Likelihood Modulus to Define a Minimum Acceptable Data Drift Coefficient for Use in the Fabrication of Credibly Artificial Diffraction Data." I also believe that we are perhaps full of hubris as a crystallographic community, because an entire field of faked structural data has existed long before crystallographers even considered manufacturing their data. Specifically, the molecular modeling community has already surpassed us in their thinking on the subject. While we idly discuss how to properly generate false data, they have had the foresight to abandon ALL data...and even the starting coordinates in crystal structures - be they real or fictitious - and publish volumes of papers entirely unencumbered by reality or plausibility. My hat is off to them. Best regards, Jim On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 8:15 AM, Jacob Keller <j-kell...@fsm.northwestern.edu> wrote: > Dear CCP4BB, > > due to increasing demand, it seems we should put together a workshop on data > fabrication, covering the various important topics (chaired by JHo): > > --Images: the future of fabrication? How long can we rely on database > Luddism? > --Ways out: how to leave a trail of "accidental" data mix-ups > --Publish large or small? Cost-benefit analyses of impact factor vs. risk of > being discovered > --Pushing the envelope: how significant is two [sic] significant > --Crossing discipline boundaries: are data fabrication procedures universal? > --Build a better "hofkristallrat"-trap: utilization of rhetorical bombast > and indignation in reply letters > > --Break-out support-session with survivors: comforting words on careers > after the fall > > --Session on the inextricably-related topic of grammatical pedantry, to be > followed by a soccer (football?) match Greeks Vs. Latins > > Ample funding will be available from big pharma and other industry sectors > > Please submit further topics to the CCP4BB list > > JPK > > ps I can't believe no one mentioned the loathsome Latino-Greek "multimer" in > the recent curmudgeonry postings. > > > ******************************************* > Jacob Pearson Keller > Northwestern University > Medical Scientist Training Program > email: j-kell...@northwestern.edu > ******************************************* -- James Kiefer, Ph.D. Structural Biology Genentech, Inc. 1 DNA Way, Mailstop 27 South San Francisco, CA 94080-4990
