The authors of a 2011 Science paper that proposed a new way to direct chemical bonds have withdrawn the paper after concerns about the data prompted an investigation and Editorial Expression of Concern last year from the journal. The retraction is the second for the group, which has also had seven other expressions of concern.
After a reader emailed the editors to raise suspicions about the data, corresponding author Christopher W. Bielawski, then based at the University of Texas at Austin, led an investigation of all the figures. It found substantial problems: “In over 50% of the figure parts, the authors deemed the data unreliable due to uncertainty regarding the origin of data or the manner in which the data were processed,” according to the retraction notice.
UT Austin concluded that there had been misconduct, but did not elaborate.
First author J.N. Brantley and Bielawski — who is now based at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in Korea – asked to withdraw the paper, but since the journal could not contact the third author, Kelly M. Wiggins, it decided to retract the article.
Here’s the retraction notice for “Unclicking the Click: Mechanically Facilitated 1,3-Dipolar Cycloreversions”, from Editor-in-Chief Marcia McNutt:
On 27 June 2014, Science published an Editorial Expression of Concern about the Report “Unclicking the click: Mechanically facilitated 1,3-dipolar cycloreversions” by J. N. Brantley et al. After concerns were raised in an e-mail to the editors from a reader, the corresponding author supervised a comprehensive evaluation of all data presented in the original manuscript by tracing all figures back to their raw data files. In over 50% of the figure parts, the authors deemed the data unreliable due to uncertainty regarding the origin of data or the manner in which the data were processed. The University of Texas at Austin conducted a confidential investigation and shared the conclusion that scientific misconduct had occurred, but provided no further detail of the nature of the misconduct. After the conclusion of the investigation, authors Bielawski and Brantley volunteered to withdraw the paper; it has not been possible to contact author Wiggins. Science is therefore retracting the paper.
The article has been cited 101 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
Hat tip: Stuart Cantrill
” The University of Texas at Austin conducted a confidential investigation and shared the conclusion that scientific misconduct had occurred, but provided no further detail of the nature of the misconduct. ”
This is a very common procedure at universities, also in the continental Europe. Nobody knows from outside what where the facts on the table, what was discussed, who was deciding, who agreed with decision who didn’t, not even who precisely were the parties found guilty, nothing. We get an obscure final statement like “scientific misconduct had occurred”, nothing more.
These institutions receive public funding of up to 100%. Imagine any other public institution processing allegations of fraud in this secretive manner, everybody would be upon them. But at universities, this omerta attitude is covered by academic freedom.
“This is a very common procedure at universities, also in the continental Europe.”
Is that true?
In those cases I know, reports were published or key findings were communicated at the end of investigations.
Two examples:
• stealing of ideas from a lecture, other misconduct: http://pubs.acs.org/email/cen/html/032007181930.html
• falsifying results for PhD thesis, but culprit was not cooperative: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/gefaelschte-dissertation-einfach-hineinkopiert-1.41024
The Jan-Hendrik Schön case also comes to mind.
Also, there are so many retractions on this blog, and the statement “misconduct has occurred, but we won’t say anything” is still rather unusual.
My assessment is subjective, but so is yours, based on a select couple of examples. Nobody really knows the true extent of misconduct, and you only learn about a tiny fraction of misconduct cases which were decided by university commissions. To speculate, you probably learn even less of all the valid suspicions of misconduct which were reported to the universities. This was my point, that we don’t know what happens behind closed doors because every commission will tell you that their first priority is confidentiality.
This is also what Debora Weber-Wulff is being unjustly criticised of (s. link above, in German), namely of making misconduct public.
Subjective or not, those were real examples, and they are close to me (know persons more or less involved etc.), so they are also representative.
The argument that “we don’t know what happens behind closed doors…” is a basis for all kinds of conspiracy theories, on the other hand.
If you are going to push a political agenda, please not on the basis of conspiracy theories. Talking long enough about how bad the state of science is will probably attract politicians who are willing to push for some legislation to connect their name to, needed or not. The result of such initiatives in general is just more rules and recommendations and time wasted for non-science.
Coming back to the above examples: The second case was (mis)used with great pleasure by local conservative politicians (and online commentators, who tend to be even a bit more conservative, but not necessarily influential) to attack the academic institution and the prof. involved, even though it was quite clear to anyone understanding the situation, who was to blame for the fabrication. It was more difficult to prove it legally, but the guy eventually got rid of his PhD, anyway. The investigation report was published – probably as a result of the attacks mentioned – and there’s more information therein than most people would want to know, in any case the short version was sufficient tu understand what had happened.
As an addition: you state “…and you only learn about a tiny fraction of misconduct cases which were decided by university commissions”.
Agree with you on this, however, and it is due to justified legal reasons (personality rights). I would believe, though, that the more important cases will get public. Which is usually happening once there is a retraction of a paper.
I hope editors will still be able to create a retraction notice that will make it clear (between the lines, if necessary…) what happened.
As I noted in another comment on the Bielawski case, it would be very important for the scientific community to know to what extent those “mechanochemistry experiments” were flawed. Hopefully, more details will become available once the legal battle is over.