Weekend reads: Editor under scrutiny resigns; bullshitting scientists; questionable practices in expanding disciplines

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Give or take a year or two: Case reveals publishers’ vastly different retraction times
• Concussion researcher McCrory up to 17 retractions
• Journal pulls paper by economist who failed to disclose data tinkering

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 48,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 250 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately — or our list of top 10 most highly cited retracted papers? What about The Retraction Watch Mass Resignations List — or our list of nearly 100 papers with evidence they were written by ChatGPT?

Here’s what was happening elsewhere (some of these items may be paywalled, metered access, or require free registration to read):

• “Chemist under scrutiny resigns from Australian university.”
• “As with political parties, what’s striking to me is not so much that some scientists bullshit, but that the mainstream of the scientific establishment doesn’t seem to care.”
• “The Tower affair illustrates how questionable and possibly fraudulent scientific practices can be tolerated to explore certain experimental directions and theoretical frameworks, particularly at the frontier of expanding disciplines.”
• “Is group authorship a better way of recognising team-based research?”
• “Vietnam’s top ‘world’s most influential’ scientist had his international article removed.”
• A company targeting doctors eager to publish papers in order to land U.S. residencies adds a disclaimer following our reporting.
• Springer Nature retracts an entire book after sleuth Mu Yang finds problems. It’s not the first time for Springer Nature.
• “The professor, surrounded by accusations of cheating, takes the reins of the institution with a historic blank vote as a sign of protest.”
• “Will the real journal please stand up?” Concerned about hijacked journals, the U.S. Library of Congress points to our Hijacked Journal Checker.
• Get Full Text Research integrates “retraction and errata data provided by Crossref and Retraction Watch.”
• “Illuminating ‘the ugly side of science’: fresh incentives for reporting negative results.”
• Sleuths find problems in half of a researcher’s 263 papers.
• “[I]t is not unusual to see paragraphs copied from authors’ previous papers with only a change in the name of the compound or material. Such templated papers are returned to the authors for further revision (or with rejection) to avoid self-plagiarism.”
• “Psychology study participants recruited online may provide nonsensical answers.”
• “Strong results for Dutch animal research transparency initiative.”
• “The Book You’re Reading Might Be Wrong.”
• “In our analysis, we found that students held common views about cheating and academic integrity in general but diverged in their responses to the hypothetical scenarios.”
• “Here’s how we tackle ‘creative plagiarism’ in academia” in Malaysia.
• “However, on both occasions, [Malaysia PM] Anwar should have also insisted on academic honesty and integrity in our universities.”
• “Publishing important work that lacks validity or reproducibility – pushing frontiers or corrupting science?”
• A paper in the BMJ about psilocybin earns an expression of concern.
• A “Science map of academic misconduct.”
• No Going Back, a much-discussed book by Governor Kristi Noem, takes back a claim about Kim Jong Un.
• “One journal…has informed the authors it is considering retracting one of their papers, which they shared with Juul in advance of publication…”
• “Scorpion venom research company did not commit misconduct, B.C. regulator rules.”
• “Rethinking the author name ambiguity problem and beyond: The case of the Chinese context.” Could ORCID help?
• “Placing research integrity at the heart of” the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF).
• “The significant stressors that affect the biomedical research community have the potential to negatively impact the conduct of science.”
• Philippines prof “Apologizes for Plagiarizing Student’s Thesis.”
• “Academics Use Imaginary Data in Their Research.”
• “Chinese scientist who published Sars-CoV-2 genome without approval regains access to lab.”
• “Ethical scientific publications or loss of credibility:” A story about sleuth David Sanders.
• “Authorities issue embarrassing retraction after claiming 70 dogs on loose in South Korean town.”

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