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Scientists need a VERY well-defined and clearly written international code of conduct. Scientists should know the rules and the nature of their punishment if they fail to abide by their code of conduct. They should be frequently reminded of their professional obligations, formally or informally. Punishment for violation should be severe.
AFAIK, they are, and it is.
Remember, science is very, very competative. The moment you manage to get your research published, other researchers pounce upon your claims and try to replicate them to see if your results hold up. This is even more evident as the "sexiness" of the finding increases. Like, the moment those researchers claimed to have succesfully performed "cold fusion", everybody in the field rushed to duplicate their findings. Nobody could, though, so the initial findings were clearly in error and not reliable.
Likewise, in the rare cases of a researcher fudging data That I have heard of, it was the graduate students in the lab who turned the researcher in. A researcher who is known to lie in their research is basically not able to get any work as a researcher. No reputable university will hire such a person, and no other researcher will want to work or collaborate with them because it will taint their reputation by association. No graduate student will want to be known, before they even get their degree, to have helped to lie in research, so that's why those students turned in their professor.
The penalties are very, very dire for lying in science. you basically throw your career away if you are caught, and since someone will eventually try to replicate your work, and science is so competeative, it's only a matter of time before you are found out.
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