Weekend reads: A troubling precedent out of China; journals as corporate tools; postdocs and suicide

The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a paper linked to vaccines, and what happens when a journal retracts 107 papers at once. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

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2 thoughts on “Weekend reads: A troubling precedent out of China; journals as corporate tools; postdocs and suicide”

  1. “Oliver Rosten used the acknowledgements section of a recent paper to blame the postdoctoral system for playing a part in his friend’s suicide. (Andrew Grant, Physics Today)”

    I fully understand and appreciate the editors of the other two Journals who wouldn’t allow publication of the article along with the dedication. This would open the door to all sorts of (perhaps well-intended) social or political commentary, distracting from an unbiased communication of research findings. Many journals allow for commentary/opinion-type submissions, which would have been the more appropriate venue. Of course, all this being said, this dedication is powerful precisely because it appears in a context where one least expects it.

  2. A small qualification to “Looking to publish your insignificant results? There’s a finance journal for you. (FinanzArchiv)”. The journal in question is actually a “public finance” journal. Public finance is actually an old name for what is more commonly called “public economics” today. The old name is very misleading as it has has little to do with “finance” which deals with topics like investments and money management. It is largely to avoid this confusion that newer journals use public economics but the journal in question was founded in 1884, long before the current term.

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