Convicted fraudster of alcohol research, Michael W. Miller, tries re-web-ilitation
April 16, 2012
We convered Alcohol research fraudster Michael W. Miller in a prior post. This was following a finding of the ORI of the NIH and a note on retractionwatch. My post focused on the fact that when cheaters like Michael W. Miller are finally caught, there is no way to recover for their sins. No way to reclaim that money. No way for the person who really deserved the job or the award to be compensated.
That pisses me off.
It also pisses me off when people who do dodgy things in science, like Charles Nemeroff, get to keep on keeping on as if nothing happened. Some patsy University will happen along to hire the dude if they think it is in their interest to do so.
Well, I see from a comment at retraction watch that Michael W. Miller plans a full court press to rehabilitate his image. Online anyway.
Welcome to michaelwmiller.net. According to Network Solutions, it was registered by Reputation Changer on Mar 15, 2012.
Registrant:
Reputation Changer LLC
39 West Gay Street
West Chester, Pennsylvania 31410
United StatesRegistered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: MICHAELWMILLER.NET
Created on: 15-Mar-12
Expires on: 15-Mar-13
Last Updated on: 20-Mar-12
The ORI finding of misconduct was published in the Federal Register on Feb 27, 2012. So this fraudster immediately used Reputation Changer to do what they do :
ReputationChanger.com specializes in helping people make their mistakes vanish from the eyes of potential clients and employers. Embarrassing arrests and unseemly articles can be pushed off of the front page of Google searches, where they are unlikely to be viewed by the majority of Google users. Because people tend to only look at the first page of results, Google searches can once again reveal the great things you or your company achieved, rather than the negative reviews overzealous and under impressed individuals have posted. People have an array of motivations for posting negative press, but the important question is not why do they post it– you should be asking yourself how to get rid of it.
How do they do it? By building a fawning self-web-presence that says crapola like:
Michael W. Miller Presents Astounding Findings or perhaps Michael W. Miller Publishes Scientific Gold. This latter conveniently omits to mention the two retracted papers that were, of course, not “Gold” but more like “made up crap”.
As far as I can tell, every link in the site points to somewhere else on the site. I’m sure this is hot stuff in repairing your Google ranks.
Wait, wait…what’s this? I tried to see if his Google presence had been improved and I found another site. michaelwmillerupstate.com was registered….by Reputation Changer …. on Mar 15, 2012. Here’s what I learned about the good Professor Miller’s attitude toward’s research:
But research is not the only component in a successful endeavor. Michael W. Miller understands that documentation—accurate documentation—is pivotal. Without this documentation, research findings could not undergo duplication. All the work that went into a study would prove wasted. This is why Michael W. Miller publishes so many different writings.
It overlooks all the “work” that other people put into trying to replicate Michael W. Miller’s faked (and now retracted) research papers. It seems that “accurate” documentation perhaps is in the eye of the beholder? or just a flagrant lie on the part of the Reputation Changer system for rehabilitating the web image?
As his career moves forward, researcher Michael W. Miller will continue to conduct research. Through his writing, Professor Michael W. Miller will share this research with the world. The result, Michael W. Miller hopes, will manifest as improved medical knowledge and techniques.
Really? He’s going to continue is he? Can’t wait to see what University is willing to hire him.
Okay, what else do you have to offer, Google? OMMFG, ANOTHER ONE!!!! michaelwmillerblog.com was registered….shall we just guess? Yep, by Reputation Changer on Mar 15, 2012.
Wonder how many more of these frigging things are out there?
Ahh, well. Just remember to keep linking to the ORI finding showing that Michael W. Miller faked data. And maybe to the retraction watch blog entry on Michael W. Miller.
__
Added: I’m particularly intrigued by the michaelwmillerupstate one. His place of employment when the fraudulent papers were detected was the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. I wonder how they feel about this use of “upstate”?
DrugMonkey 
April 16, 2012 at 4:58 pm
this is the same dog shit that anil potti was using to clean up his shitty rep.
this stuff is horrible:
“As a doctoral candidate, Michael W. Miller took on only one class. This class was Neuroscience. Although it was one course, he taught both lectures and laboratories. This allowed Michael W. Miller to see how these two sections interact.”
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April 16, 2012 at 5:00 pm
I had never seen one of these in action, forgive me my naive outrage if this is old hat.
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April 16, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Holy shit, that’s deserves-to-be-santorumed level wrong.
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April 17, 2012 at 2:59 am
Well then Eli and the others will have to give you a hand. Linkies please
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April 17, 2012 at 4:07 am
If Miller thinks this will help his legacy or his ego, then go for it dude. Only a noob would pay money to reputation-scrubbers. Miller is close to retirement, and that is exactly what he should do. He can spend his days scrapbooking his career–print out those new web pages, tape them in a book, and share with friends and relatives.
I’d be more concerned if some university or research institute places him in a position where he again has access to research funds, or gets another chance to apply for funds.
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April 17, 2012 at 6:23 am
I think his fake sites are hilarious!! It makes him sound like a total douche, so he’s kinda shooting himself in the foot there.
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April 17, 2012 at 6:55 am
“Better a self-absorbed douche than an academic fraudster” is probably the way Michael W. Miller thinks about it. This is about pushing references to his data fakery off the first couple of Google search pages….
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April 17, 2012 at 8:07 am
@Arlenna. Wow, you are right: big-time douchery. The text is like a high school book report. I like how one of his pages is sponsored by Christian Addiction Rehab, as in “pray the VTA away.”
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April 17, 2012 at 5:43 pm
He also has a new twitter account: https://twitter.com/#!/MichaelWMiller5
This lists all the web sites that have been created. Unfortunately all of the pages don’t allow comments until they are approved by an administrator….go figure.
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April 17, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Twitter? This is unbelievable. Bet he has a Geeplus and Fb too, eh?
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April 17, 2012 at 6:33 pm
I am sure he does or it will be set up soon! Incredible. Doesn’t surprise me though; his ego is way too big to let this all go without some sort of damage control.
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April 17, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Who is the audience though? His mom? You would think that any academic types would get wind of the ORI decision and the paper retractions…
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April 17, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Apparently the Press Release strategy is part of the reputation changer mojo…
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/michael-w-miller-responds-to-new-study-on-in-utero-alcohol-exposure-urges-caution-in-reading-data-2012-03-22
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April 17, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Oh and that Twittfeed turned up site #4 by my count
http://michaelwmillersite.com/michael-w-miller-diagnosing-fetal-alcohol-syndrome/
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April 17, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Ha! Love the “mom” comment!
Yeah, but MWM’s mind does not work that logically. He truly thinks he is above everyone and can simply write up some bull**** and have everyone buy it. He has spent much of his career spouting off crap like this and having it work most of the time. In his mind, he truly feels HE has been wronged and that he is powerful enough to restore himself using this crap. This is the only means he has right now (although I can think of a few people he has probably reached out to to try another route), and MWM will exploit any means he can to get his name out there again. Ridiculous=yes, desperate=yes, but totally expected based on his personality=absolutely.
And I agree with you, I don’t think any of this will work in academia. This field is very small and word has spread very fast. Plus most people in the field had their doubts about him long before any of this came down. All this will do is further demonstrate how inflated his ego is and how desperate he has become…
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April 17, 2012 at 7:15 pm
Don’t forget this one too!
http://www.prweb.com/releases/MichaelWMiller/04/prweb9367446.htm
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April 17, 2012 at 10:29 pm
The homes here got a Center grant, a nice society award, study section service and pubs. There wasn’t there wasn’t that much “doubt”, Anon.
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April 18, 2012 at 3:00 am
I understand that, but working both in the field and with him, I can promise you that there was a lot of “doubt” in the field, but not much could be proved until this came down. Academia sucks and research integrity is at an all time low and no-one, except a few select people, wants to challenge someone as powerful as he was.
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April 18, 2012 at 5:32 am
good thing i live on EAST gay street…
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April 18, 2012 at 6:30 am
research integrity is at an all time low
I keep hearing this asserted, but I see zero evidence that it is the case. What is clearly the case is that there is now an all-time vastly greater ability for interested sleuths to reveal failures of research integrity.
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April 18, 2012 at 6:39 am
Comradde PhysioProffe: I can see that viewpoint and thank you for bringing that up.
My whole experience with this case has driven a wedge through me about research integrity and the outpouring of so many cases makes me think that integrity is so low.
However, you raise a very good point that it is most likely more awareness/reporters and a greater ability to spread these stories that is more of a factor.
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April 18, 2012 at 7:03 am
Anon,
It is also very easy to ignore the relative infrequency of these cheaters. Or to assume they are but the tip of a large iceberg. We have no basis for those assumptions and should be vigilant within ourselves.
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April 18, 2012 at 8:37 am
[…] talks mainly about the fact that scientists busted for fraud never admit their wrongdoing. Like one Michael W. Miller, a scientific fraudster discussed on this blog. One counter-example is listed by Zimmer: One notable exception to this […]
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April 22, 2012 at 4:53 am
Don’t forget, the more people that access these bogus pages by MWM the more these sites will be found on googles first page, displacing articles like this one.
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October 23, 2012 at 10:45 am
All I can say with regard to the wbsites is that Googles new algorithms will sort it out.
They are now ‘very anti spam and penalise low rated links’, in an aim to clean the Intrnet up to a certain extent by lowering the rank of pages that use these tactics.
Time will hopefully sort things like this out.
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