My department head is manipulating data in his research papers and skillfully alters plagiarized text to avoid detection. I found this out while working with him on a journal article. I politely confronted him but he did not concede and I backed off from that paper. Later other professors confirmed that most of his papers are bogus and results are fabricated.
He mentioned once that the reason for choosing nanotechnology (which he is not familiar with) is that there is very little literature available and few experts to review the paper. He gets through the review process by using a plethora of statistical analysis results (with fabricated data) to support his claim and gets through (some) editors by using fancy terms like neural network and fuzzy logic. The irony is that he does not even know the underlying theory of whatever analysis he is doing. How do I know this? I uttered a few doubts and the responses were extremely poor. He uses Minitab and Matlab tools to get things done. He once jokingly told me that he gets a paper ready overnight. Maybe it was not a joke after all.
Reporting to the management is useless as they won’t listen to me. I cannot challenge his paper, because I barely know anything in nanotechnology (neither does he). Editors won’t take me seriously since he has considerable reputation due to articles in high impact journals. So what should I do? I could not tolerate his insanity and literature pollution.
[Edit 1] More info: I am about to graduate and leave the department for good. The paper in which I was involved was shelved because sometime later I pointed out to him that the hypothesis is fundamentally wrong. I still have the original manuscript he mailed to me from his unofficial mail id. Institutional routes are closed, I tried complaining about his poor lecture quality once (anonymously) and it backfired for the entire class. He has 15 years of experience, 20+ journal article and numerous conference papers. I don't stand a chance against him.
Update I will try to report this issue to retraction watch or through any other means possible. Still it is not possible to disprove his claims without repeating the experiment. Will update here, if there is any progress on this issue.
Answer
Your backing off reaction is the appropriate one: cease any form of association with him right away.
The description of your first-hand witnessing of him fabricating data is more than enough to ascertain his academic dishonesty. You don't need to know about nanotechnology to know that manually modifying data to make it pass a statistical test is idiotic and fraudulent. Also, experts in that field will assume the data are real when conducting peer review, so it's not something they can easily detect without repeating the (alleged) experiments.
His 'results' are unwanted. By publishing bogus science he makes people lose time and money, he's robbing legitimate researchers of their funding, he is adding noise that masks the signal. If you can afford to report his behavior please, do it. Depending on where this story takes place, you might lose a variable number of feathers in his striking back, but at the end of the day he is the one who is wrong.
Taking direct action to publicly expose his fraudulent behavior is risky for you, especially since he is your hierarchical superior. But, when he will get caught (because he will), if it is apparent that you were aware of his wrongdoings and still accepted co-authorship or credit for his publications, his bad reputation is going to stain your career. If you fail to prove your claim, it's your career that will be at risk. So, proceed with caution. Note that it is ethically perfectly fine to report scientific wrongdoings anonymously.
Make sure that all institutional reporting routes are inefficient before bringing the issue to another level. It is not clear in your post if you actually tried or if you just assume 'they won't listen to you'.
Since you provided the content of at least one paper, and know about its fake nature, if he submits the paper despite your protests, notifying the editor is a thing you could do. Editors will take you very seriously in reputable journals.
You can also take part (anonymously if relevant) in a post-publication comment on his papers, on websites like pubpeer.com or retractionwatch.com.
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