As The new York Times reported, "Every day , on average, a scientific paper is retracted because of misconduct. Two percent of scientists are willing to admit that they have manipulated their data to suit their purposes. Considering that researchers publish about 2 million articles earch year, 2 percent is not a negligible number. The Office of Research Integrity within the US Department of Health and Human services has cracked down on at least a dozen researchers for irrgularites such as plagiarism and fabrication of results. What might motivate such misconduct, and why is it a serious offense?