Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
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elisabethbik.bsky.social
Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
@elisabethbik.bsky.social
50K followers 32K following 2.6K posts
Science integrity consultant and crowdfunded volunteer, PhD.
Ex-Stanford University. Maddox Prize/Einstein F Award winner
NL/USA/SFO.
#ImageForensics
@MicrobiomDigest on X.
Blog: ScienceIntegrityDigest.com
Support me: https://www.patreon.com/elisabethbik
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
gidmk.bsky.social
Scientific error-checking, difficulty: easy

Find some issues in this table of results from an RCT of vitamin D for COVID-19. There's a couple of obvious issues, and some that are less easy to spot.
November 25, 2025 at 4:59 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
This “High protein” Strength Meals is like 90% rice with some tiny shredded pieces of chicken and barely any sauce. Disappointing.
November 25, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
wimvh61.bsky.social
@elisabethbik.bsky.social

digitalekrant.volkskrant.nl/volkskrant/2...
Het plaatje klopte niet
Ze wilden gewoon even het onderzoek in hun vakgebied op een rij zetten. En toen stuitten de Nijmeegse hersenonderzoekers René Aquarius en Kim Wever op grootschalig gesjoemel. 'We keken elkaar aan: dit...
digitalekrant.volkskrant.nl
November 23, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
mondinspace.bsky.social
Seriously, phone astrophotography is awesome! I’ve got a few shots on my Pixel 9—nowhere near as good as the the pros—but I love seeing it shared. People should post more of their phone astro shots. Honestly, even simple shots can be stunning.
elisabethbik.bsky.social Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist @elisabethbik.bsky.social · 2d
Wow! Stars! And amazed at how good my iPhone can capture all of them. We finally figured out what the Southern Cross looks like.
Photo taken with an iPhone17 of the Southern night sky near Whitianga, New Zealand. So many stars! Same photo as on the left but zoomed in more. I drew two lines in the shape of a cross to highlight the constellation called “the Southern Cross”
November 23, 2025 at 10:14 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Back in New Zealand after two back-to-back conferences, for a couple of days of vacation at the Coromandel peninsula, before we head back home. Lovely bed and breakfast with amazing view.
View over green meadows and trees, with a blue-water bay, blue sky, and some clouds. Sunny.
November 23, 2025 at 4:29 AM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
deevybee.bsky.social
New blogpost. Some reflections on a @clarivate.com webinar that I attended yesterday.
deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-...
#evaluation #papermills #fraud
The dangers of using bibliometrics with polluted data
This week I attended a Webinar organised by Clarivate on the topic of “ Eugene Garfield Centenary Celebration: Past, Present and Future ...
deevybee.blogspot.com
November 21, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
fabricefrank.bsky.social
The so-called Science Guardians are not only fraudsters. They are also liars.
November 18, 2025 at 10:06 PM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
lucileveissier.bsky.social
My paper about the ScienceGuardians on @themeta.news today!

@elisabethbik.bsky.social @lonnibesancon.bsky.social @thatsregrettab1.bsky.social
themeta.news 𝖳𝗁𝖾𝖬𝖾𝗍𝖺𝖭𝖾𝗐𝗌 @themeta.news · 4d
🟢 La galaxie de la science a ses Guardians ?

Un groupe anonyme sévit sur les réseaux depuis un an, ciblant principalement les détectives de la littérature scientifique : les ScienceGuardians

Notre enquête : themeta.news/les-scienceg...

#VeilleESR #ResearchIntegrity
Analyse Les ScienceGuardians, fantômes de l’intégrité Un groupe d’activistes anonymes s’emploie depuis près d’un an à suivre, voire à menacer juridiquement, les détectives de l’intégrité scientifique. Chroniques d’une guerre invisible. « Les ScienceGuardians prétendent que nous sommes tous des fraudeurs mais n’apportent aucune preuve » Elisabeth Bik, détective
November 21, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
pedrobeltrao.bsky.social
I tried an even harder example on Gemini Pro image generation and this is quite scary/amazing. I asked for a microscopy image of around 20 HeLa cells, GFP tagged 20% nuclear, 10% membrane, +1 nuclear staining, + overlap. Image below and prompt in the following post.
November 21, 2025 at 5:32 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
ScienceGuardians, Ghosts of Integrity

A group of anonymous activists has been working for nearly a year to
follow, or even legally threaten, detectives of scientific integrity.
Chronicles of an invisible war.

@lucileveissier.bsky.social for The MetaNews

themeta.news/les-scienceg...
Les ScienceGuardians, fantômes de l’intégrité — TheMetaNews
Un groupe d’activistes anonymes s’emploie depuis près d’un an à suivre, voire à menacer juridiquement, les détectives de l’intégrité scientifique. Chroniques d’une guerre invisible.
themeta.news
November 21, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
drjbeaudry.bsky.social
What does the ideal education in publication intergrity look like? How are students and ECRs supposed to learn how to identify unreliable research? @pranujanp.bsky.social @jabyrnesci.bsky.social @aidybarnett.bsky.social #AIMOS2025
November 19, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
williamngiam.github.io
More people need to know about MetaROR @metaror.bsky.social! If you are doing meta-research, then you get that the for-profit publishing system is a headache – you can help sideline journals by having your preprints handled by the MetaROR team for the peer review process. #AIMOS2025
November 20, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
machadolac.bsky.social
Unfortunately I couldn’t be there in person for my #AIMOS2025 talk, but I’m grateful for the chance to share what we’re building at @sci-integrity.com, especially alongside @aimosinc.bsky.social, one of our wonderful partners!
🌏🤝 #SIA #ResearchIntegrity #OpenScience #ScienceIntegrityAlliance
elisabethbik.bsky.social Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist @elisabethbik.bsky.social · 5d
3. Luciana Machado @machadolac.bsky.social (online): A New Global Alliance Tackling Research Integrity Challenges.
Many great initiatives deal with science integrity, but coordination is important. We connect organizations.
Reach: interactive digital magazine.
www.sci-integrity.com
#AIMOS2025
Title slide
November 20, 2025 at 5:43 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
We will end the @aimosinc.bsky.social conference with a plenary session by Nicholas Chartres, with "Corporate Vectors of Chronic Disease: Using Internal Industry Documents to Safeguard Environmental Health Research Integrity"
#AIMOS2025
The speaker at the lectern
November 21, 2025 at 12:04 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Good morning from Sydney, on day 3 of the @aimosinc.bsky.social conference.
This morning I'll attend a workshop by the amazing @anniewham.bsky.social on: "Retrieving Scholarly Metadata with R: Introduction to Crossref and OpenAlex APIs"
#AIMOS2025
Workshop Speaker/Chair = Annie Whamond Topic/Title = Retrieving Scholarly Metadata with R: Introduction to Crossref and OpenAlex APIs Outline = Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are useful tools that allow users to retrieve large batches of metadata with relative ease. Accessing these programmatically, rather than through a web browser interface, enhances research reproducibility and replicability. This introductory workshop focuses on two major databases for scholarly publishing, Crossref and OpenAlex, that have APIs accessible via R packages without paywall barriers. Participants will be guided through how to: * Use these APIs responsibly * Retrieve and explore batches of article metadata * Understand the different strengths and limitations of both databases * Fetch citing and cited-by data for specific articles of interest * Define additional parameters for answering specific research questions RMarkdown Scripts with instructions and exercises will be provided, so no prior programming or API knowledge is required. However, it is essential that attendees bring a laptop with R and RStudio already installed if they wish to actively participate. We also strongly recommend pre-installing packages "rcrossref" and "openalexR" in case internet issues arise on the day. All workshop resources, including scripts and dummy data, will be made available to all AIMOS attendees via GitHub.
November 20, 2025 at 9:37 PM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
It seems that journals do their very best to not have to publish a Letter to the Editor.
November 20, 2025 at 10:31 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
How the Avalanche of Academic Papers Threatens Scientific Research, by Vince Bielski
'Editor-in-Chief Anna Stilz at @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social led a revolt that culminated in the mass resignation of the journal’s entire editorial staff and board.'
www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/202...
How the Avalanche of Academic Papers Threatens Scientific Research
This is the third part of a series on academic publishing. Read part one here and part two here. For many years, the prestigious journal Philosophy & Public Affairs published about
www.realclearinvestigations.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:39 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Can we please discuss accessibility at conferences?

When organizers and schedules assume that everyone can walk fast and climb stairs, people with mobility issues (visible or invisible) might feel excluded.

/
Photo taken at the Neues Museum in Berlin (which luckily has elevators!). It shows lots of stairs both left and right and several floors with people walking up. Some windows at the top.
November 20, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
gidmk.bsky.social
Sad to see the CDC is now spreading fairly straightforward lies.
ddiamond.bsky.social Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 5d
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
Autism and Vaccines QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS PAGE 2 OF 9 | ALL PAGES J For Everyone NOV. 19, 2025 KEY POINTS • The claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. • Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities. HHS Research on Plausible Biologic Mechanisms between Vaccines and Autism HHS will evaluate plausible biologic mechanisms between early childhood vaccinations and autism. Mechanisms for further investigation include the impacts of aluminum adjuvants, risks for certain children with mitochondrial disorders, harms of neuroinflammation, and more. * The header "Vaccines do not cause autism" has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.
November 20, 2025 at 4:51 AM
Reposted by Elisabeth Bik - Perpetrator 5, a fraudulent microbiologist
tkes.bsky.social
US-CDC has officially embraced anti-science😰
elizabethjacobs.bsky.social Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 5d
VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM, YOU FLAMING SHITBIRDS.

THE LAST TIME HHS, AS CURRENTLY OCCUPIED BY RFK JR., CONDUCTED A “COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT” OF THE CAUSES OF AUTISM THEY BLAMED TYLENOL AND THEN, BECAUSE IT WAS BULLSHIT, HAD TO WALK IT BACK.
Vaccine Safety MENU V For Everyone NOV. 19, 2025 KEY POINTS • The claim "vaccines do not cause autism" is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism. • Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities. • HHS has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.
November 20, 2025 at 4:55 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Now attending the Hackaton "Hacking the system: improving research assessment by stealth"
DORA: Valuing academics by a wider range of scholarly products (wider than number of publications/citations), such as sharing datasets, protocols, software.
sfdora.org
#AIMOS2025
Hackathon Speaker/Chair = Ginny Barbour Janet Catterall Topic/Title = Hacking the system: improving research assessment by stealth Outline = The aims of this session are to: 1. Ensure participants are familiar with key principles of responsible research assessment 2. Understand the link between responsible research assessment, open science and research quality 3. Take away 2-3 concrete actions that participants can use to ""hack"" research assessment at their institution Many researchers are keen to see improvements in research assessment in order for it to support open and reproducible research. However, it is often the case that researchers don‚Äôt know where to start with change at their institution, and may feel relatively powerless in doing so. Using the new guide from DORA - A Practical Guide to Implementing Responsible Research Assessment at Research Performing Organizations (https://sfdora.org/resource/practical-guide/) we will outline key starting points and tools for effecting change. Through group discussions, we will collaboratively develop a set of simple ways that individuals - especially early and mid-career researchers (who are often poorly represented in policy discussions) - can take back to their institutions, and via their own local networks and peer groups help initiate and catalyse responsible research assessment ‚ especially as it relates to open science and research quality. Slide about DORA
November 20, 2025 at 5:41 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
After a quick tea break, I am in the parallel discussion session: "Mitigating risks for early career researchers that blow the whistle on unreliable research" with chair Vincent Mourik @vincentmourik.bsky.social
(Per request, I will not be posting this discussion).
#AIMOS2025
Discussion Speaker/Chair = Vincent Mourik Topic/Title = Mitigating risks for early career researchers that blow the whistle on unreliable research Outline = Unreliable research is often best spotted by those that are closest to it: the people working in the lab, those doing the technical work. Typically, these are non-tenured researchers in the first decade of their career. Speaking up, or having to blow the whistle, is particularly risky in this phase of the career. Retaliation by those implicated can take many forms. Others more distant might fear or misunderstand the person and let this cloud their judgement of the person and/or their work. Topics I would like to have a discussion on are: * best whistleblowing practices‚ * overview of risks and their impact, * how and where to seek support, * implementing mitigation strategies such as how to convincingly embed a whistleblowing event into one‚ * career narrative. I would seek a bullet point style few pager aimed at whistleblowing ECRs as an output, to help them forward early on in the process, and view a round table discussion with a few interested others as a good starting point for that. Disclaimer: I blew the whistle myself on a case of unreliable research in quantum physics/computing involving Delft University of Technology, University of Copenhagen and Microsoft. My proposal is grounded in my own experience. No Zoom link available
November 20, 2025 at 4:32 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Next, Lightning talk session 8:
Topic/Title = Efficiency and Errors
Speaker/Chair = Gina Grimshaw
We will have four talks in 30 min.
(we all had to run from one building to another involving 6 floor and 4 floor elevator ride, so we are starting a bit too late).

#AIMOS2025
peaker/Chair = Gina Grimshaw Topic/Title = Efficiency and Errors Outline = Madeleen van der Merwe: Statistical Errors in Health Journal Articles. A systematic review. Gerben ter Riet & Anne de Jong (online): Four-Year Trends of Adherence to a Checklist for Responsible Research Practices. Inika Sharma: The landscape of randomised controlled trials in India: A mapping review. Jacques Raubenheimer: You get what you pay for & value what you work (hard) for—Avoiding the pitfalls of bad Google Trends research.
November 20, 2025 at 3:36 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
After lunch, we continue with 'Mini-notes 3' in the plenary room.
Topic/Title = Integrity
Speaker/Chair = Jason Chin

#AIMOS2025
Mini-notes 3 Speaker/Chair = Jason Chin Topic/Title = Integrity Outline: James Heathers: The evolving field of forensic metascience. Annie Whamond: Analysing discussion text and references of paper mill articles in high-impact factor cancer journals. Luciana Machado (online): A New Global Alliance Tackling Research Integrity Challenges. Zoom/Teams link = Click here
November 20, 2025 at 2:33 AM
elisabethbik.bsky.social
Posting from the next workshop: Image Integrity in Research: Detecting Manipulation and Embedding Trustworthy Practices, led by Matt McCoy @proofigai.bsky.social , who shows a 'Hype cycle of his career" 😂
LLM as a tool -> LLM as an analyst -> LLM as a scientist?
github.com/HKUST-KnowCo...
#AIMOS2025
Workshop Speaker/Chair = Matt McCoy Topic/Title = Image Integrity in Research: Detecting Manipulation and Embedding Trustworthy Practices Outline = Image manipulation and duplication are among the most common causes of research retractions, yet figure checking is not widely adopted compared to text plagiarism detection. This workshop will explore how undetected image problems threaten research trustworthiness, distort evidence, and have been documented in areas where commercial determinants of health exert influence. The session aims to build both practical skills and strategic awareness. Participants will examine real-world case studies of image integrity breaches and identify common manipulation patterns such as duplication, splicing, and inappropriate adjustments. The workshop will explore the range of accessible detection tools, ranging from open-source scripts to professional platforms currently trialled by publishers and institutions. Beyond detection, the workshop will focus on embedding image integrity into everyday research and publication practice. In small groups, participants will design draft workflows and policies for journals, funders, and institutions, considering feasibility, alignment with open science, and equitable access. By the end of the session, participants will have both technical methods and actionable models to strengthen image integrity within their own research communities.
November 20, 2025 at 12:44 AM