Why do you have to be honest in science?

Answer 1

It is very important that scientists be completely honest when they do original research. There have been several occasions when dishonesty -- often the result of someone being so sure of their own idea, or so determined to win acclaim for a discovery that they 'fiddle their data' or take short cuts away from their published procedure -- has led a whole area of science down a false trail.

The enterprise of science has been likened to working out a huge jigsaw puzzle, with thousands of colleagues all trying to put together different bits of it. Unless you can have confidence in all of your colleagues' best efforts, it is simply not going to work. And any of you who have worked at even moderate sized jigsaw puzzles will know how difficult and frustrating it can be to find and correct even small mistakes.

As far as students and others doing non-original exercises are concerned, there are only two things I can say:

(1) Any sort of dishonesty is morally wrong, and not a good thing

(2) If you want any sort of future in science, you really need to get into habits of complete honesty in your work, or you will fail when it does come to doing important or original stuff.