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 costly mistake’ prompts retraction of paper on hair loss
- Widely covered paper on ranitidine-cancer link retracted
- Paper by former NIH researcher alleging ‘Ponzi schemes’ by government, pharma retracted
- Elsevier glitch prompts temporary removal of critique of review on race and heart disease
- ‘Galling’: Journal scammed by guest editor impersonator
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 128.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- The CEO of a biotech developing a drug for Alzheimer’s has been “placed on leave amid allegations of altered images in her research papers” on PubPeer.
- “When his suspicions went unanswered, this biologist decided to disavow his own study.”
- The Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists has expelled Hironobu Ueshima after he was found guilty of misconduct in more than 140 papers. The Society also suspended two of his co-authors.
- The Lancet has removed a letter “alerting the medical community to the dangers of a covid-19 outbreak in the Gaza Strip,” but the letter remains available on ScienceDirect, which, like the Lancet, is owned by Elsevier.
- A retracted study about a “little dinosaur” is republished. Now it’s about a lizard.
- “What’s Wrong with Paying for Peer Review?” A lot, say Alison Mudditt and Tim Vines.
- “If anything, the article casts the sort of needless doubt on an institution that allows political opportunists to pounce on it, to spin it to advance ideas that further weaken the institution’s ability to withstand such an assault.”
- “[I]t is often challenging to build an inclusive partnership that stays firm in the face of conflict.”
- “The authorship rows that sour scientific collaborations.”
- “A new code is no weapon against excessive self-citation.”
- Predatory journals and reviews: “an increasingly common threat.”
- “Racially biased academic publishing in need of decolonisation.”
- “Rating scale for Excellence in Research for Australia to be recalibrated, with Indigenous studies incorporated as a field in its own right.”
- “‘Peer-reviewed preprints’ will offer guide to quality, says eLife.”
- Two Chittagong University “teachers withdraw promotion application after plagiarism accusation.”
- “Another [Dhaka University] teacher accused of plagiarism. The associate professor, however, dismissed the allegation as false and fabricated.”
- “UIC’s College of Education’s Center for Literacy has created and published the first issue of an academic journal authored and peer-reviewed by graduate students.”
- Tenured US federal scientists “do not receive special treatment when being fired for cause,” a court rules.
- “Gujarat University Prof accused of forcing students to pursue PhD under him to boost API score.”
- “Journal closure leads to dip in papers’ citations.”
- “Putting a Stop to the Papermills, Part 2.”
- “Survey Finds Lack of Diversity Among Journal Editors.”
- “Male academics assessed more highly if they work at a top-ranked university but same bias does not materialise for female scholars.”
- “Microsoft Academic Graph is being discontinued. What’s next?”
- “Plagiarism: A Criminal Act of Dishonesty.”
- “Forensic database challenged over ethics of DNA holdings.”
- “Anonymous document accuses four Queen’s U of Canada professors of playing at being Algonquin or affiliated with some other First Nation.”
- After a demand letter, The New York Times removes a mention of a satirical outlet from a story.
- “I, We, and They: A Linguistic and Narrative Exploration of the Authorship Process.”
- “Juul: less than half of e-cigarette trial outcomes were properly reported or declared, study finds.”
- “As editor, I should have done a better job authenticating authorship. Lesson learned. Going forward, we plan to make better use of search engines for verification, particularly when not familiar with the writer.”
Like Retraction Watch? You can make a one-time tax-deductible contribution or a monthly tax-deductible donation to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, 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].
Leave it to the Scholarly Kitchen to come up with the absolute worst take on an issue.
At least Muddit has tried to do paid peer review (at Collabra). It failed but I trust that she has an idea of the complexities of the issue. She also runs a non profit publisher that’s actively trying to move away from toxic business models. So you may disagree with the authors but I would say that they’ve written a well intentioned and serious take regardless.
Fair enough. I found their arguments very weak. Paying for peer review would be too complicated? Funny, journals managed to overcome that obstacle when accepting payments for APCs. And all publications with freelancers will have a process in place. It will introduce some admin overhead, but if payments mean editors have to send out fewer rounds of invitations, it will probably be a net win.
Payments for peer review introduce an ethical dilemma? That’s rich, coming from an editor and CEO who hold much more power and receive much more compensation than any peer reviewer, yet are somehow ethically unimpeachable.
I can understand the nature of the piece (one-sided, gratuitously argumentative) given its origin as an opening statement from a debate. Yet I am uncertain of the value of publishing only one half of a conversation like that.
I find it more convincing that paid peer review will crush smaller, non-profit and free journals. A diamond OA journal budget might be just hosting and DOIs. Now imagine that every time they ask someone to review they’re asked why they won’t pay $450. We’re already seeing extensive consolidation due to “transformative agreements”. Adding more complexity will make it worse. Now of course, if you don’t care about diamond OA or smaller and non-profit journals that’s fine. But a lot of the “why don’t they pay peer reviewers” sentiment comes from anger at for-profits.
But I also agree that there’s no ethical problem, in principle, with fee for service. We don’t worry that our doctors won’t treat us if we pay for the consultation. We pay for basically every other service from food and electricity to law and real estate. Why shouldn’t professional services like peer review be similarly paid?
Finally, I think I saw on Twitter that James Heathers was planning to respond. And TSK says in the comments they welcome a counterpoint.
It is a remarkably weak assessment, in the vein of “throw everything at the wall and see if something sticks.” Internally self-contradictory as well. I was hoping to see a serious discussion.
In particular the argument that a flat fee is inherently problematic, if it has any force at all, would apply very strongly in the case of a fee of $0.
I’ve done a great deal of peer reviewing, though I stopped doing it for Elsevier many years ago. I did not think maintaining their profit margins was a good, or even defensible, use of my time. One editor angrily wrote me that his own work for them was unpaid – meaning that he was diverting the university funds going to his salary to a private publisher. A relic of an earlier time. (Admittedly, my problems with Elsevier would still not be addressed if they did pay for services rendered.)
Science Based Medicine blog retracted a review for “failure to meet standards”
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/irreversible-damage-the-transgender-craze-seducing-our-daughters/
Trans activists are incredibly powerful in academia. Trans academics command huge social media followings and can rally thousands of signatories for their petitions. Non-trans scholars append their pronouns to their Twitter bios and email signatures in support. Publishers plan to silently rewrite history to effect author name changes for trans authors (something they never cared to do for women who marry and change their name – “get an ORCID” was good enough a reply for them).
The strength of the trans movement makes every claim in that retracted and republished book review believable. I am not at all surprised that it cannot be published in a mainstream outlet.
Yes. I read the review, and unfortunately, it just presented the author’s claims, without evaluation or much context. It was not worth presenting, and was not a good fit with the excellent work on the rest fo the site.