Scientific Figures and Photoshop - Two Great Tastes That (Don’t?) Go Great Together
Via AiE&S, I found an article in the esteemed Chronicle of Higher Education discussing the prevalence of digital manipulation of figures in scientific articles. This is an issue of interest to be, because I’m something of an amateur digital manipulator myself. For years I’ve taken part in online Photoshop contests, and even won small monetary prizes here and there for my efforts. One of the reasons I do this (in addition to how much fun I have with it) is the potential for applying the skills I learn to my work. Mostly by this I mean my web design hobby, but knowing your way around Photoshop really helps when making presentations or other science-related graphics. The problem is that there is a very fine line between making something look nice and altering the scientific meaning.
Papers are starting to employ tools to look for digital tampering:
New tools, such as software developed by Mr. Farid, are helping journal editors detect manipulated images. But some researchers are concerned about this level of scrutiny, arguing that it could lead to false accusations and unnecessarily delay research.
I have to say I fall on the side of the “concerned researchers” here. In my experience, you tend to have two groups of people. There are those who understand image manipulation, its strengths and weaknesses, and when it can be appropriately implemented. Then there are others who don’t understand what’s going on and tend to think that if you even open your TIFF file in the program you’ve just sabotaged it’s scientific validity. I worry that we will end up with a situation of photoshop = bad, and that’s simply not true at all. As a matter of fact, the very description of the software being employed indicates that this is already the path we’re heading down:
The software looks for patterns in the digital code underlying an image. When files are opened and altered in Photoshop, for instance, codes are added that Mr. Farid’s software can detect.
I can hardly think of a single image I haven’t opened in such a program (I usually use The Gimp though). Almost every figure needs at least to be cropped, have a label or two added, and saved out as different formats. Does that mean every figure in my papers will be throwing up flags?
To be fair, it seems like the journals themselves are still taking a level hand for the most part:
So far the journal’s editors have identified 250 papers with questionable figures. Out of those, 25 were rejected because the editors determined the alterations affected the data’s interpretation.
10% rejection because of altered meaning seems to indicate that the vast majority of digital editing is not scientifically harmful.
And, as we so often see, Open Access may lend a hand in solving the problem:
One new check on science images, though, is the blogosphere. As more papers are published in open-access journals, an informal group of watchdogs has emerged online.
“There’s a lot of folks who in their idle moments just take a good look at some figures randomly,” says John E. Dahlberg, director of the division of investigative oversight at the Office of Research Integrity. “We get allegations almost weekly involving people picking up problems with figures in grant applications or papers.”
I’m not sure that I approve of the online witch-hunt oversight scenario this seems to set up, and this type of method won’t detect image tampering prior to publication (or at least online availability).
It’s a sticky problem, to be sure. It’s clear that image manipulation programs allow for data falsification that is almost indetectable to the human eye, especially when done by an expert in the use of the software. These same programs (and largely identical usage of the programs) can pull new scientific information out of otherwise useless images. In my opinion, specific alterations should be mentioned in the figure captions. I do this when I present figures at group meeting, for instance noting that I’ve adjusted contrast for easier viewing. I wouldn’t mind in these cases a requirement to submit both images to the journal, so that they can judge for themselves the validity of the manipulation. I just don’t want scientist to be discredited simply because they are trying to, with the best of intentions, improve communication of their findings.
