Welcome to the first Weekend Reads of 2021. 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:
- Medical writer loses COVID-19-cancer paper for plagiarism
- Psychology paper retracted after creators of tool allege “serious breach of copyright”
- Psychology journal retracts two articles for being “unethical, scientifically flawed, and based on racist ideas and agenda”
- List of retracted COVID-19 papers grows past 70
- A look back at retraction news in 2020 — and ahead to 2021
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 72.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- “Danish researchers were hailed around the world – but they had overlooked a fatal mistake.” The backstory of a Nature retraction.
- “For the end of the year I am saluting the favorite review I received in 2020.”
- “His willingness to ask questions of people in power carried over to his professional life and led to his role in the development of the Freedom of Information Act, the landmark legislation providing citizens with a tool to keep the government open and honest.”
- “Since I started working on science integrity in 2013, the 4,500 or so problematic papers I’ve found have led to 347 retractions.” Elisabeth Bik reflects on 2020.
- “He wondered if readers would agree. ‘This is starting to sound like Theranos,’ he said.”
- “Every publicly funded university in western Canadian university has an academic integrity policy; however, many have focused predominantly on punitive measures to address breaches of integrity after they have occurred.”
- A study that claimed to find a link between COVID-19 and vaping in youth has drawn strong criticism in three letters to the editor. The authors — and the editors, who say the episode prompted change — respond.
- “The dignity and respect associated with a doctorate has gone down the drain,” argue two academics in India. “This recent trend to make Ph.D. a shopping-list item is condemnable.”
- “Self-corrected publications in the imaging literature have increased exponentially during 1999–2018 and author information was the most common location of error correction,” says a new study.
- “A new report by a congressional watchdog says U.S. agencies need to flesh out and clarify their policies for monitoring the foreign ties of the researchers they fund.”
- A paper claiming to describe a new human salivary organ — which garnered media attention — draws the scrutiny of a number of surgeons and anatomists.
- “Journal Retraction Rates and Citation Metrics: An Ouroboric Association?”
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I suggest look up over 2000 studies in threads on twitter by @phil_w888