Welcome to another edition of Weekend Reads. Because our site was down for several days starting last Saturday morning, there was no Weekend Reads last week, and this is a double edition.
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 last two weeks at Retraction Watch featured:
- IEEE retracts plagiarized paper after Retraction Watch inquiries
- Exclusive: University of Glasgow seeking retraction of multiple papers after findings of image manipulation
- Behavioral ecologist Jonathan Pruitt’s PhD dissertation withdrawn
- Science journal retracts paper after university investigation finds ‘carelessness and lack of attention to detail’
- ‘Clear evidence of theft’ brings down meningitis paper with dodgy images
- Bad MATH+? Covid treatment paper by Pierre Kory retracted for flawed results
- Anatomy journal retracts 13 papers
- Springer Nature geosciences journal retracts 44 articles filled with gibberish
- Astronomer apologizes, withdraws preprint slated for PNAS about impact in the field after criticism
- Ivermectin-COVID-19 study retracted; authors blame file mixup
- Paper on how trans youth come of age is retracted following ethics board investigation
- HHS takes three and a half years to tell us “there are no records responsive to your request”…for a letter we know exists
Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 190. There are now more than 31,000 retractions in our database — which now powers retraction alerts in EndNote, Papers, and Zotero. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately?
Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):
- “Scammers impersonate guest editors to get sham papers published” by the hundreds.
- “Integrity measures take their toll: Introducing a complete supplement issue with retractions only.”
- PLOS ONE study of “cyber-agriculture withdrawn over accuracy and replicability as former researcher sues MIT.”
- “The unbearable lightness of scientometric indices.”
- “Gender Imbalance in the Editorial Activities of a Researcher-led Journal.”
- A look at retractions — and their downstream effects — in Brazil.
- “Publishing more than they are reviewing? Reject!”
- “Macedonian Association of Medical Editors Initiatives to Advance the Integrity of Science and Publishing.”
- “[P]oor practices at a…company helping to carry out Pfizer’s pivotal covid-19 vaccine trial.” Related: “Vaccine trial misconduct allegation – could it damage trust in science?”
- A look at the “brave new publishing world” but also “the problem with preprints.” And “Open-access science in the misinformation era.” Finally, “In Defense of Preprints.”
- “Addressing toxic behaviour is in universities’ interest.”
- “Where is artificial intelligence taking publishing?” And:”How AI is accelerating research publishing.”
- “Strengthening research integrity: The role and responsibilities of publishing.”
- “Academic Citations Evolve to Include Indigenous Oral Teachings.”
- “How faculty define quality, prestige, and impact of academic journals.”
- “Dhaka University finds plagiarism evidence against teacher.”
- “How Pseudoscience Generated US Material and Device Regulations.” A fascinating look at drug and device advertisements through history.
- “Citation Inequities in the Social Sciences: The Case of Communication Studies.”
- “Why scientific journal authorship practices make no sense et al.”
- “Is Scientific Communication Fit for Purpose?”
- “One in five of the two million studies published annually could involve fake data.”
- A retraction “suggests ongoing problems within Australian forensic science.”
- “How to read, write, and review?”
- “Strengths and Weaknesses of the Research Enterprise during the Pandemic.”
- “How conspiracists exploited COVID-19 science.”
- “A major university press has launched a new journal concept that better reflects ‘the research lifecycle‘.”
- Good to see sleuth Elisabeth Bik getting credit in retraction notices. But’s it’s Elisabeth, not Elizabeth.
- “How a grad school assignment led me to a career investigating research misconduct.”
- “Why Colleges Struggle to Root Out Professor Misconduct, in One Deposition.”
- “Further communications revealed that the intensity and diversity of errors within the article were immense.”
- “The Role of Human Fallibility in Psychological Research: A Survey of Mistakes in Data Management.”
- “Does the World Need an Academic Integrity Awareness Index?”
- A study questions whether “a journal’s research quality can be undermined by editorial favouritism.”
- “Paper retraction and exemplary behavior in Crim.”
- “Pastors Who Plagiarize Others’ Sermons Committing ‘Ministerial Fraud’, John MacArthur Says.”
- “Research integrity and societal trust in research.”
- “Scientists: don’t feed the doubt machine.”
- “Use of social media metrics in research evaluation ‘narrow.’”
- “A quantitative and qualitative citation analysis of retracted articles in the humanities.”
- “Perceived publication pressure is linked to intentions to engage in future scientific misconduct.”
- “Obesity journal editor’s extensive company ties raise concerns about conflicts of interest in publishing.”
- “Metallurgist Admits She Falsified Test Results for Steel Used in Navy Submarines.”
- A wine researcher has sued the “Australian Wine Research Institute and Australian Grape and Wine for Copyright Infringement.”
- “This report has been retracted, following additional information from the daughter of Victor Richards, confirming that he is, thankfully, alive and well.”
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Welcome back. Glad to see the site fixed and RW back.
The sermons article is confounding. For science, of course, each article must be original. But I could have sworn there was a weekly publication that offered free sermons for ministers to use, and that great sermons by people like St Augustine were written down and saved specifically because others wanted to imitate his points in their own addresses. But in the article & accompanying tweet thread there are several pastors angry at just that. I had no idea that some Christians consider each weekly sermon to be an opportunity to produce a new and inimitable take on a very old and simple message.
> Scientists: don’t feed the doubt machine
Even though some of what is written in the article is sensible, this is an extremely dumb conclusion, that no real scientist should ever stand behind. Doubt is the ultimate, most important driver of all science. One could reasonably argue that science *is* the “doubt machine”.
As the great Richard Feynman said: “Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”.