Weekend reads: Psychology stats errors abound; font choice dooms grant application

This week at Retraction Watch featured high-profile retractions from Nature and the BMJ. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• One in eight psychology studies “contains a gross inconsistency that affects the statistical conclusion,” says Michele Niujten of the findings of a new paper she co-authored. Coverage from Monya Baker of Nature.
• A grant application has been rejected because of the wrong choice of font, Daniel Cressey reports in Nature. It’s not the first time, Weekend Reads readers may recall.
• Just in time for Halloween, the Exploratorium offers a delightful graveyard of dead science.
• ProQuest briefly canceled one scientific society’s subscription to a particular resource because it was reducing the company’s potential revenue, then reversed its decision.
• Science papers are rarely cited negatively, according to a new study, reports Philip Ball in Nature.
• How do we make biomedical research more reproducible? Dorothy Bishop, who headed up a recent workshop on the subject whose report is out this week, talks to Nature’s Daniel Cressey. And Chris Chambers weighs in at The Guardian.
• “Does the Reproducibility Project in Cancer Biology Offer a Model for a New Kind of Science Auditing?” asks the Mendelspod podcast.
• The debate over the PACE chronic fatigue syndrome study continues, with coverage by Science’s Jon Cohen of a new paper by the same authors, a response from the authors to David Tuller’s posts, and a response from Tuller. James Coyne also weighs in.
• Here’s an apparent paradox: Your co-authors have a higher H-index than you do, says a new paper in Scientometrics (sub req’d).
• “Lately, however, finding reviewers has been increasingly difficult,” say the editors of Religion, Brain, and Behavior. “We are not sure why, and we do not aim here to make anyone feel guilty about declining an invitation to review a manuscript.”
• It’s a myth that basic science research drives innovation, Matt Ridley argues in the Wall Street Journal.
• How do you say “publish or perish” in Italian? Find out in Massimiano Bucchi’s piece in La Repubblica.
• A PLOS ONE paper on fact-checking earns a correction.
• The trouble with human subjects, courtesy of xkcd.
• Some paleontologists are criticizing Naledi lead researcher Lee Berger’s approach to his work, particularly his speed and where he published it, Robin McKie reports in The Guardian. Berger responds.
• Peer review in this journal may take a while: At least one member of the editorial board is dead, Tom Spears reports in The Ottawa Citizen.
• Does academic writing need to be so complex? asks Victoria Clayton in The Atlantic.
• “[I]t’s becoming increasingly clear both that the journal model is beginning to creak and that better models are appearing,” says Richard Smith, a member of the board of directors of The Center For Scientific Integrity, our parent non-profit organization, in the BMJ.
• In the Washington Post, Joel Achenbach presents “six amazing science stories that are absolutely untrue.”
• “We want to create a magazine that isn’t just about, ‘Gee whiz, look at what science is doing.’” Tom Zeller talks to CJR’s Laura Dattaro about Undark.
• Are these “retranslations” really just reproductions? A fascinating case study in Babel (sub req’d).
• A Cambridge academic has been jailed for stealing £238K by applying for fake grants, then pocketing the funds, David Matthews reports at Times Higher Education. (We found that story in the COPE monthly digest, which is full of other items of interest, including a number of anonymized cases journal editors have brought to the organization.)
• Genomic data used in research may be at risk of privacy breaches, according to a new report (via Ruth Williams in The Scientist).
• A new way to monitor clinical trials? Koji Oba reviews risk-based monitoring in the International Journal of Clinical Oncology (sub req’d).
• On the On The Media podcast, our Ivan Oransky salami slices the “bacon = cigarettes” meme circulating this week thanks to the WHO.
• Sports fans and broadcasters are tolerant of athletes and coaches who make mistakes but then own them, says Eve Marder in eLife, and science needs to embrace that approach.
• Where do we draw the line to define a null result? asks Uri Simonsohn.

Retractions outside of science:

• Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has retracted his claim that a Palestinian inspired the Holocaust (New York Times).
• The Hampton County Guardian “would like to apologize to Jonathan Gray, his mother Nina Gray and the Gray family for mistakenly identifying Jonathan Gray as deceased. Gray is alive and well.”
• “The International Trade Administration inadvertently published a notice of Final Redetermination Pursuant to Court Remand in Wheatland Tube Co. v. United States, in the Federal Register on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 (80 FR 63537) (‘Notice’). The Notice is hereby retracted from the Federal Register, and as such, the Notice should be disregarded.”
• A South African newspaper has hired a fact-checker and apologized to President Jacob Zuma after retracting a story about him.

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