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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- Researcher in Japan suspended, demoted for plagiarism
- Critics face legal threats as journal takes more than three years to act
- Ivermectin meta-analysis to be retracted, revised, say authors
- Authors blame a “ghoul” for retraction of paper claiming vaccines lead to health and behavioral issues
- Authors — except one — retract 2014 Nature paper on genetics
- Authors admit they “published the paper without completely studying their work.”
- Attorney asks Retraction Watch to remove post because client has lost out on opportunities
- False claims allegations cost Mass General, former Harvard researcher more than $1 million
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 149.
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- “Here Comes Trouble: An Anti-Tobacco Hero’s Complicated Legacy.”
- “The Co-Founder Of Snopes Wrote Dozens Of Plagiarized Articles For The Fact-Checking Site.”
- “Wilfully submitting to and publishing in predatory journals – a covert form of research misconduct?”
- “In reality, peer-review is a purely administrative process that allows people to rise up the academic ladder. Whatever scholarly purpose it serves is secondary.”
- “Despite geneticists being warned about spreadsheet problems, 30% of published papers contain mangled gene names in supplementary data.”
- “How the strange idea of ‘statistical significance’ was born.”
- “Prof Khan seems to suggest that we should leave the literature as it is and focus on doing better in the future. We do not agree with that…”
- “Critics say a childhood asthma study unethically withheld care—and see a troubling trend.”
- “AI datasets are prone to mismanagement, study finds.”
- The Swiss Embassy in China says a biologist quoted in the media doesn’t exist.
- “Conflicts of interest and methodological issues sully a study…in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, autism researchers say.”
- “Should the European Union have an office of research integrity?”
- “A federal judge sentenced a Florida nurse practitioner and a Florida woman to prison terms today in connection with their participation in a conspiracy to falsify data related to clinical drug trials.”
- After a “Swiss Ph.D. student tweeted critically about China,” his professor “wanted nothing more to do with him.”
- “Can Twitter data help in spotting problems early with publications?”
- “Violations of Standard Practices by Predatory Economics Journals.”
- Another look at citations of Wakefield’s retracted 1998 paper.
- “Does a successful replication always increase trustworthiness?”
- “[T]he extent of disagreement in science, its evolution over time, and the fields in which it happens, remains largely unknown.”
- “Data don’t lie, but they can lead scientists to opposite conclusions.”
- “A parliament session decided that under the Retraction Act, which has wide-ranging and ever-evolving power, the government will be able to change any policy decision at any time.” It was Satireday.
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Appreciate the outside piece from Undark on Glantz.
I’m with him on flavored vapes, esp. since tobacco companies, at least some, are looking at eliminating menthol cigarettes.
But, yes, his other claims on vaping seem over the top.
“We didn’t bother too much about it (poor research, exagerating results ) when he was doing things that we thought were good”. Sums up the major problems with modern science. Either it’s paid for or meets the polical agenda of the research, being correct and honest are way down the list.
Also: “Frankly, none of us cared if he was a little bit sloppy with his research because the ends justified the means,” Abrams says.
I guess I admire Abrams’ and Bates’ honesty, because there is no question that scientists are not immune to confirmation bias and other cognitive biases that influence how we interpret the research. Still, their statements make it sound less like unintentional bias and more like deliberate, tactical support of bad science. And maybe there was some of the latter, but I’m hoping not too much. Certainly the other side was straight out lying, so no one should spare any sympathy for Tobacco execs. But science is supposed to be better than Tobacco execs. Mistakes will happen, and scientists are as flawed as anyone else, but intention is absolutely crucial. I hope that these quotes are misleading, and if so, I think these scientists could have phrased their statements more thoughtfully or carefully.
Regarding the entry “The Co-Founder Of Snopes Wrote Dozens Of Plagiarized Articles For The Fact-Checking Site.” I am totally dismayed over the fact that a staff member of this fine organization -one of its co-founders no less- would have engaged in such egregiously unethical, journalistic behavior. At a time when the number of conspiracy theories and the number of those who believe them seem to be on the rise, giving these people the ammunition to now dismiss outright Snopes’ debunking efforts is plain disheartening.
Plagiarism isn’t the same as generating fake news.
Ren, that may be, but is there any doubt in your mind that this incident will undermine the public’s trust in Snopes, especially for that segment of the population that tends to subscribe to fake news and that may already be somewhat skeptical of these types of independent sources that attempt to rectify it?
Right. Same as slight alterations in a figure not affecting the conclusions of a paper isn’t the same as generating fake data.
Same as driving 5% faster than allowed with no car accident isn’t the same as skipping red ligths and kill someone.
“Wilfully submitting to and publishing in predatory journals – a covert form of research misconduct?”
… what if this is a predatory journal?
I read the abstract and first couple of sentences. It didn’t seem like a good paper. Nothing new there. Was not well written.
“Wilfully submitting to and publishing in predatory journals – a covert form of research misconduct?” My question earlier (August 19, 2021 at 7:10 am) was : Should Editorial Board Membership with publishers which are listed as predatory publishers be considered as scientific misconduct as they suggest wilfully submitting/publishing in predatory journals – a covert form of research misconduct?
Interesting proposition! I think this perspective is short of calling “invited presentations” at “predatory conferences” in the same line. Moreover, what about editorial board memberships in the predatory journals? Can we include knowingly accepting editorial memberships in the same category? Should we advise faculty members not to take up editorial board memberships from such journals?
“Wilfully submitting to and publishing in predatory journals – a covert form of research misconduct?”
Does Editorial Board Membership with publishers which are listed as predatory publishers?
Second author of the above paper is an editorial board member of the following journals
Open journal of cell biology https://www.scirp.org/journal/DetailedInforOfEditorialBoard.aspx?personID=5244
World Journal of Biological Chemistry https://www.wjgnet.com/1949-8454/EBoardMembers?pageNumber=3
Botany Research Journal https://medwelljournals.com/eboard.php?jid=1995-4751
these are published by Science Reserch Publishing, Medwell Publications, Baishideng Publishing Group which are under this list of predatory publishers https://predatoryjournals.com/publishers/
An important aspect of the story is that the plagiarizer was not a journalist, and didn’t really understand journalistic ethics. It’s not like he was hiding what he was doing; he was openly encouraging other people at Snopes to do the same. But probably because he was the boss, the actual journalists there apparently never pushed back; they just ignored it instead. Not that this excuses him or puts the blame elsewhere; he should have learned about journalistic ethics along the way. But I think it’s an inherent danger when something changes from what was basically a personal blog written by someone focused on getting clicks than on following journalistic ethics. Of course, the irony of Snopes being a fact-checking source makes it that much worse. They will probably not fully recover from this.