Obviously "making a point" or "satire" is not a valid justification for scientific fraud. Otherwise anyone caught in plagiarism or whatever could just use that excuse to avoid consequences.
But if fraudulent or manipulated articles were used as part of legitimate research to study failures in the scientific system itself, it could be justified. But obviously it would have to be handled as serious research, itself peer reviewed and so on.
> Obviously "making a point" or "satire" is not a valid justification for scientific fraud. Otherwise anyone caught in plagiarism or whatever could just use that excuse to avoid consequences.
This is not good logic. Of course anyone they can make the excuse. Just like they can claim they made a editing mistake. Just like a person committing murder can claim self-defense. It doesn't mean the defense is true or holds. Establishing whether some behaved unethically is just hard sometimes.
But if fraudulent or manipulated articles were used as part of legitimate research to study failures in the scientific system itself, it could be justified. But obviously it would have to be handled as serious research, itself peer reviewed and so on.