Weekend reads: The fall of a Crossfit science watchdog; a CDC retraction about suicides; “superb subterfuge” by predatory journals

Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.

The week at Retraction Watch featured a critic with more than two dozen retractions; why twenty journals were punished; and why 35,000 papers may be eligible for retraction. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• “Through their blog, the Russells made themselves the unlikeliest scientific watchdogs: a pair of for-profit company men with no academic training in science.” Stephanie Lee takes a look at the fall of Russell Berger, who played a role in retractions. (BuzzFeed)
• “On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a widely cited result on farmer suicides was wrong.” (Nathan Rosenberg and Bryce Wilson Stucki, The New Food Economy)
• “And according to Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, a blog that monitors such matters, questionable journals now also occasionally retract articles in a bid to appear responsible, in what can only be described as a superb piece of subterfuge.” (The Economist)
• “Why are ostensibly respectable, peer-reviewed journals now publishing discussions of what has long been dismissed as bigoted psychological research?” (Michael Schulson, Undark)
• “Psychology departments need to begin teaching statistical thinking, not rituals, and journal editors should no longer accept manuscripts that report results as ‘significant’ or ‘not significant.’” (Gird Gigerenzer, Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, sub req’d)
• Congratulations, men: Thanks to a recent update, there are now no women on the Retraction Watch leaderboard.
• “Thus, we believe that improving analysis and reporting of incomplete data will make reproducibility and replicability efforts easier.” (Social Science & Medicine, sub req’d)
• “To protect public health, concerns with this analysis should be documented in the published literature, the Koch et al. 2018 analysis should be retracted, and marketing materials on contraceptive effectiveness should be subjected to appropriate oversight.” Chelsea Polis has concerns about Daysy and DaisyView, used to prevent unwanted pregnancies. (Reproductive Health)
• The Declaration on Research Assessement (DORA) has a new roadmap. (Stephen Curry, DORA blog)
• “This article has since been retracted on grounds of the points presented being non-factual.” (Human Resources)
• “[A] preprint server offers you a more modern world where you can try karaoke.” (Dorothy Bishop, BishopBlog)
• “Our results reaffirm that researchers preferentially co-publish with colleagues of the same gender, and show that this ‘gender homophily’ is slightly stronger today than it was 10 years ago.” (Luke Holman, Claire Morandin, bioRxiv)
• “External reviewers have a unique obligation to offer a reasoned, rigorous, and qualitative assessment of a scholar’s contributions and therefore should not use [Google Scholar].” (PS: Political Science & Politics)
• “Even if there was no further growth over the next three years, the relevant literature to be reviewed for the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s] IPCC’s sixth assessment will be somewhere between 270,000 and 330,000 publications. This is larger than the entire climate change literature before 2014.” (Jan Minx, The Guardian)
• Bruce Gilley, the author of a retracted — and republished — paper that made the case for colonialism has been cleared of “some sort of discrimination or harassment claim.” (Drew van Voorhis, The College Fix)
• William McBride, who exposed the dangers of thalidomide in the 1960s but “fell from grace in the 1990s after being found guilty of scientific fraud over his experiments involving other pregnancy drugs,” has died. (ABC)
• “My regrets include wonderful papers that we failed to attract, and that we still have more to do in speeding up our handling of labyrinthine complexities that can arise in retractions and formal critiques of our papers.” Nature editor-in-chief Philip Campbell signs off after more than two decades at the helm.
• “A group of open science advocates have launched the first preprint repository aimed exclusively at African scientists.” (Smriti Mallapaty, Nature Index)
• A major sports science journal has just banned a flawed statistical method. (Christie Aschwanden, FiveThirtyEight)
• “A Star Scientist From The Max Planck Society Allegedly Harassed And Bullied Her Colleagues.” (Pascale Mueller, BuzzFeed)
• “Although websites such as PubPeer and Retraction Watch have served to uncover manipulated images of, for example, electrophoresis gels or Western blots, scientific publishers are under pressure to more aggressively ensure the images they publish are true representations of research findings.” (Kathi Hanna, ORI newsletter)
• A top policy expert doesn’t always disclose what some say are relevant financial ties to health care companies, reports Sarah Jane Tribble. (Kaiser Health News)
• Philip Zimbardo, who led the Stanford Prison Experiment,responds to recent criticisms that the study was fraudulent. (Brian Resnick, Vox) And researchers post a related preprint in PsyArxiv.
• “Can We Science Our Way out of the Reproducibility Crisis?” asks Hilda Bastian. (Absolutely Maybe)
• Recent changes to Australia’s code of research conduct “have weakened our already inadequate position,” say three scientists. (The Conversation)
• “In an atypical and surprising move, the latest commentary on the controversial ISCHEMIA trial has been temporarily taken down from the American Heart Journal (AHJ) website.” (Patrice Wendling, Medscape)
• “Monsanto’s ghostwriting and strong-arming threaten sound science—and society,” argues Sheldon Krimsky. (Environmental Health News)
• “He just keeps saying these things that are not true.” The “bad boy” of autism research. (Hannah Furfaro, Spectrum)
• “Bamidele later told Retraction Watch that he didn’t learn about plagiarism rules until he enrolled in a master’s degree program.” The battle against plagiarism in Nigeria. (Linda Nordling, Science)
• “How can emergency physicians protect their work in the era of pseudo publishing?” (Turkish Journal of Emergency Medicine)
• “A day after suspending its study of the use of ketamine on agitated people by paramedics, Hennepin Healthcare said it would halt similar clinical trials that seek consent from patients only after treatment.” (Andy Mannix, Minneapolis Star Tribune)
• “[O]nce an editor has invited a manuscript for full peer review, the journal is committed to publishing the work…” A new peer review experiment from eLife. More here.
• “Scientists are looking for data donors to share highly personal information … but getting that data means seriously rethinking the way science studies human subjects.” Maggie Koerth-Baker looks into the All of Us project.
• “According to new rules set by [India’] University Grants Commission, all research proposals will be checked for plagiarism online from the initial stage itself, rather than just the final product.” (Deccan Chronicle)
• A researcher who committed fraud–and who unsuccessfully sued the CBC–loses his medical license. (Sam Pazzano, Canoe.com)
• “How can we make hydrogeology free from plagiarism?” ask Tom Gleeson and Matt Currell. (AGU Blogosophere)

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our growth, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, sign up for an email every time there’s a new post (look for the “follow” button at the lower right part of your screen), or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].