The week at Retraction Watch featured a discussion of why science has bigger problems than retractions, and a look at what happened when a journal decided to get tough on plagiarism. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
- “Historically, mentors have taught their trainees that hard work that results in solid scientific findings will ultimately be rewarded. Dr. G’s experience suggests that this no longer holds true, and this grim outlook was echoed throughout our interviews.” A piece in eLife takes a sobering look at the risks to the current generation of scientists.
- “Stealth research:” John Ioannidis reflects on Theranos in JAMA.
- Female biomedical researchers are “hassled with demeaning remarks. Unwanted advances. Bribes — or threats — to coerce sexual favors.” Leah Samuel reports for STAT.
- A world-famous ethicist at Yale is accused of sexual harassment, Katie Baker reports at BuzzFeed.
- Five don’ts for introducing female speakers at academic and other conferences, and why it matters, from Janina Dill.
- What explains the gender gap in pay for PhDs? A new study tries to answer. (Helen Shen, Nature)
- “Authors who consider quoting research papers should be careful.” A classic 2010 paper from The BMJ.
- A year ago yesterday, Retraction Watch broke the story of the impending LaCour-Green study retraction. Here’s how that happened. (Naomi Shavin, The New Republic)
- “When we hype our discoveries, science is diminished,” says Timothy Caulfield in the Globe and Mail.
- “Why a drug that lowers cholesterol doesn’t save lives.” Co-founders Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky pen a new entry in their “Five Year Watch” column for STAT.
- How can we “set biomedical information free” according to Jessica Polka in STAT? “Embrace preprints.”
- Tips on how to avoid the “profiteers, wasted effort, and fraud” that come with predatory journals, from Mary Grace Umlauf, editor in chief of the International Journal of Nursing Practice.
- Many U.S. postdocs will now be eligible for overtime pay, which could have far-reaching effects on research, Heidi Ledford reports at Nature.
- What do psychologists think about marginally significant findings? Laura Pritschet and her colleagues explore the question in Psychological Science.
- Even preeminent geneticist George Church doesn’t mess with the Ingelfinger Rule: He agreed to a closed meeting about creating genomes from scratch, per an unnamed journal’s request, reports Ike Swetlitz for STAT. (A profile of Church in STAT by Sharon Begley says he’s submitted a paper to Science.)
- The Laura and John Arnold Foundation has awarded $3.6 million to Bioethics International to expand the Good Pharma scorecard,as well as a new two-year, $7.5 million grant to the Center for Open Science. (Note: we have also been the recipient of the foundation’s generosity.)
- “Social-sciences preprint server snapped up by publishing giant Elsevier,” reports Richard Van Noorden for Nature.
- Theranos has corrected tens of thousands of blood test reports, writes John Carreyrou for the Wall Street Journal.
- Are there more retractions in stem cell research? asks Paul Knoepfler.
- An environmental group has demanded the retraction of a federal study used to justify increasing septic density in preserved New Jersey land.
- Antibody maker Santa Cruz Biotech has been fined $3.5 million over alleged violations of the U.S. Animal Welfare Act. (Sara Reardon, Nature)
- Nick Stockton takes us “Inside EurekAlert, the news hub that shapes the science you read,” in WIRED.
- Quirin Schiermeier offers tips on peer review for young researchers in Nature Jobs.
- A group in India is calling for research misconduct to be considered a crime. (Business Standard)
- “Crisis in Science: New Solutions.” A report on a panel at the University of Zurich featuring our Ivan Oransky, PubPeer’s Brandon Stell, Science Matters’ Lawrence Rajendran, and Kevin Schawinski of Citizen Science.
- How can technology solve problems in research? Laura Wheeler of Digital Science has some answers. (Science: Disrupt)
- What’s the best way to recruit research participants? Jessica Wright finds out for Spectrum.
- John Horgan “takes a skeptical look at capital-S Skepticism.” (Scientific American)
- The U.S. Cancer Moonshot need a Reproducibility Toolkit, says the International Cell Line Authentication Committee.
- Is writing honest book reviews the best idea during your PhD? wonders Steph Wright in Times Higher Education.
- Hijacked journals are still a problem, says Jeffrey Beall.
- A Florida school superintendent appears to have plagiarized parts of a book he self-published. (Gainesville Sun)
- The controversial SUPPORT trial “does not exemplify comparative effectiveness research studying practices or therapies in common use,” according to a new analysis in PLOS ONE by staff at Public Citizen and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
- Scientists must curb the “tendency to try untested treatments,” says Matt Carey in Spectrum.
- Scientists are pretty confused about the ethics of big data when it comes to personal information, writes Sarah Zhang at WIRED.
Retractions and Corrections Outside of the Scientific Literature
- “The Times regrets the error. Readers don’t.” David W. Dunlap writes about famous embarrassing editors from the Gray Lady.
- “The Reuters story at 1046 GMT on a suicide bombing in the Yemeni city of Mukalla on Monday is withdrawn. The local military command says no such attack took place, and residents have retracted their account.”
- A police department retracted the photo of an alleged burglary suspect, who has nothing to do with Billy Joel, despite this news story.
- “I’m not sure if it’s kosher to publish a retraction to a letter to the editor, but, if permitted, I would like to do just that — as well as eat a bit of crow along with my large helping of humble pie.” (Langley Times)
Research misconduct is a crime and it should be treated as such. To penalty to such misdeed is to make it a policy that before a research finding is published, a sworn statement should be made that it is completely truthful. Lying under oath is a very serious crime, perjury.
Unless you want to put all scientific publishing in the hands of government (which I’m pretty sure most don’t want), this isn’t going to work.
I hope the sexual allegations against Thomas Pogge will lead to consequences for both Pogge and Yale. Independent of any academic achievements, there is simply no space for scientists that use their role and power and sexually harass students. Science can only really strive if we provide a safe environment for everyone. And universities that learn of those allegations must be forced to take them seriously or pay considerable fines.
However, I do not think people convicted of continued sexual harassment against students such as described in the buzzfeed article should be barred of publishing. This should solely be based on the scientific merit. But perpetrators should lose their university positions. They are a threat to the young people wishing to study safely. Likewise, organizers of conferences or workshops should not invite those known to threaten the safety of younger students.
How about we wait until a conviction occurs before we jump to conclusions? You know, due process and what have you?
Theranos has corrected tens of thousands of blood test reports, writes John Carreyrou for the Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ report is paywalled, leaving me in perplexity as to what is going on there. I gather from second-hand summaries that Theranos has cancelled all the blood test reports performed with the proprietary Edison single-drop technology that was the company’s original reason for existence, and has corrected tests that they farmed out to old-school technology. It seems unlikely that they drew enough blood from all their customers to have archived samples and repeat the tests, so what did they do to the original results? Did they belatedly include a constant, or a factor?
A bit of poking about finds this working link at wsj.com (to, at least, a longer version than the snippet linked to above).
Whoops. It is (of course) the same link. But when I got to it from the Google News home page, it led to the longer story…
Regardless of the legal consequences, the BuzzFeed article is devastating for the reputation of Yale University. Among many many other examples, the comment done by the Yale’s Title IX coordinator is so insensitive: “Thank you for your expression of concern for the safety of the Yale community”… It sounds like a cruel joke.
Hardly “devastating” to their reputation. You think if someone sees “Yale” on a c.v. that it’s not going to carry a huge amount of weight just because of this?
Almost no one has heard about this issue and fewer still will remember it or use it in their decision-making.
I would say that it barely affects Yale’s reputation at all.
I am completing my Ph.D. in Chemistry in two months with 6 published papers, and I have decided to leave academia for good. I think I will become a fire fighter or a police officer.
In the unlikely event that you are serious about entering one of those two professions, let me strongly urge that you consider firefighter; any department would absolutely love to have a chemist in their ranks.
☺
Non-academics are amazed when I explain the system. 5 years for a PhD then 5-10 years of postdocs and possibly short-term lecturing contracts, with a 1 in 3 chance for physics and chemistry of obtaining a permanent academic or research position. At least it’s not biology where it is about 1 in 10.
Of course the point of it all is that your supervisor and possibly other academic staff have their names on your papers. Why employ junior academics when postgrads are much cheaper.
Me too. But I got only one paper.
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/developing-text-and-data-mining-technologies-to-empower-scientists
“HEADT Centre will develop tools for information recommendation and detection of research integrity issues”
May 24, 2016
Rolf Degen: “Prestigious neuroscience journal falls for dumb Freudian bullshit paper.”
https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/735740582417465345
Referring to:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452216302019