BJKS Podcast
BJKS Podcast
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith
105. Eugenie Reich (Part 1): Plastic Fantastic, scientific fraud, and institutional norms
1 hour 26 minutes Posted Nov 1, 2024 at 7:00 am.
One of the biggest fraud cases in physics/all of science
How and why Eugenie started writing about the Schön case
Why did Schön commit fraud?
Schön's PhD: he never saved any original data
Bell Labs vs. Schön's PhD lab: long-term revolutions vs. short-term applications
Schön's first work at Bell Labs was 'unpublishable'
How to get away with fraud: pretend you collected data in another lab
Bertram Batlogg and the role of the supervisors of fraudsters
How the bursting of the Dot-Com Bubble and 9/11 may (indirectly) have exacerbated Schön's fraud
How to use your colleagues' ideas to commit better fraud
How Schön's fraud unraveled
What is Schön doing now?
A book or paper more people should read
Something Eugenie wishes she'd learnt sooner
Advice for PhD students/postdocs
0:00
1:26:32
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Show notes
Eugenie Reich is an attorney who represents scientific whistleblowers, and a former investigative science journalist. We talk about her previous work as a science journalist, in particular her book Plastic Fantastic about one of the biggest fraud cases in physics, the case of Jan-Hendrik Schön. We'd planned to also discuss Eugenie's current work as an attorney, but spent all our time on the Schön case. Eugenie kindly agreed to do another interview, in which we cover the legal aspects of fraud...