Mostly, though, open data acts as a deterrent against committing fraud in the first place, since it would take the brassiest of brass necks to post a fake dataset on a public website.55 The same principle works for p-hacking that borders on fraud, and for more innocent errors: allowing other scientists to see your data and how you analysed it means that eagle-eyed peers can spot spreadsheet typos, incorrect statistics, improbable numbers, or undeclared analyses that might affect the way your results should be interpreted.
