Weekend reads: Lawsuits filed and dismissed; ‘the rise of the science sleuths;’ research assessment culture

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 400. There are more than 50,000 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):

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6 thoughts on “Weekend reads: Lawsuits filed and dismissed; ‘the rise of the science sleuths;’ research assessment culture”

  1. About the stupid so-called “Gollum Effect”:
    Not sharing data / resources or asking for compensation in return has nothing to do with greed or “hoarding”. It is as if we call all copyright holders “greedy” and “hoarder” or Gollums. It is the very point of intellectual property, to protect one’s ideas and inventions and research and art etc. Mr. X puts lots of creativity, IQ, time, and hard work to create something valuable; he either patents / copyrights it and sell it, or allows others to use it. The latter is his own generosity. It is not his DUTY to share the result of years of his work with an entitled person.
    This Science news story is actually the other way around. i.e., The bad people are these entitled people who EXPECT and DEMAND others’ resources be shared with them unconditionally, otherwise they have a right to badmouth them and call them nasty names like Gollum. I don’t know why and how Frontiers has even accepted this stupid article:
    https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.889236/full?et_cid=5344163
    and
    Which is the source for this stupid article:
    https://www.science.org/content/article/scienceadviser-gollum-effect-having-horrid-nasty-filthy-impact-academia

    1. Patent law requires that one disclose sufficient information about an invention that someone else skilled in the art can reproduce it. Furthermore, one must disclose the best examples of the invention known to the inventor at the time of filing. Not doing so is grounds for patent invalidation.
      Many government funding agencies are emphasizing and requiring more open data sharing. If you conduct your research using taxpayer money then you need to be prepared to, eventually, share the data upon request.

    2. Example:
      “NSF’s data sharing policy
      NSF-funded investigators are expected to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF awards.”
      new.nsf.gov/funding/data-management-plan

      1. @K thanks for your comment. 1. You can see that I assumed that the data / resources belong to the researcher. Of course, if they belong to the university, then the researcher is not even in the equation; he is not in a position to refuse or agree to sharing. That’s obvious and a given. Not even the subject of my comment.
        But if the researcher is the one who legally owns them, then he can and should do whatever he wishes with them, and that is totally legal, ethical, and right. That is called intellectual property and that is what that Frontiers’ stupid Gollum article didn’t seem to understand. The example you provided is for cases where the data belongs to the institution and the institution mandates or encourages the researcher to share his data. That is not even a mater a question. That’s a given.
        I am talking about scenarios where the data / resources / invention belong to the researcher or the copyright / patent holder. That Frontiers’ paper is like complaining that “this man doesn’t share his hard-earned money with us. He is a GREEDY, HOARDER, GOLLUM who wants to keep his money to himself.” Wow, everyday they unlock new levels of privilege and entitled-ness! Now we don’t even own our own money and MUST share it with others like in communism.
        They basically demand for others’ properties. They may call it communism, but we call them bandits and thieves.
        ————————————————
        2. About patent laws, transparency is for validation and expert assessment only, not as a mechanism for open data sharing. Patents are never ever supposed to be considered “open” information for free “use”. Patented materials, while being completely transparent and visible, are protected by rights that cut any hands that want to steal the design without compensation –indeed until the patent expires.
        ————————————————
        3. And unlike patents that need to be transparent, copyrighted materials do not even need to be transparent in order to be copyrighted. For example, all closed-source proprietary software programs are totally “blackbox” and even encrypted, but at the same time, totally protected by heavy copyrights. Intellectual property, baby!

        1. The only way a researcher can own and keep completely to themselves proprietary data is to never disclose it publicly. It makes no difference if they are an individual or an institution.

          An invention that is patented must be fully disclosed. In return for doing that the inventor is given a 20 year monopoly on the invention.

          If taxpayer money was used to fund the research that resulted in the intellectual property then you are required in many countries to share that data. In addition, the government, at least in the US, is given the right to a royalty-free license to practice the invention if it so desires. That is the deal you make when accepting the funding.

          Most publishers require the sharing of data underpinning the results disclosed in the paper. That is the deal you make with the publisher to publish your paper.

          If you don’t like it, don’t 1) patent 2) accept funding from others 3) publish your work. Put it in a box and hide it in your basement instead.

  2. @Antonio: An inventor or discoverer can certainly decide to keep the details of their invention secret, and start a business using it. That’s a trade secret, which is legal but not protected–if someone else comes up with the same thing, they can start their own business. You can either keep something secret or patent it, but not both. In science, if you want people to accept your results, you’re supposed to present the evidence.

    The article is partly about people who are trying to have that both ways–to keep something a secret, and also get credit for the discovery.

    The article is also about Scientist A trying to stop Scientist B from publishing B’s research, because it might prove A’s previous work wrong. And it’s about people demanding co-author credit for work they weren’t involved with. Either of those may be legal, but they’re both selfish and dishonest. In your analogy, the person complaining is the rightful owner of the hard-earned money, which the “Gollum” cheated them out of.

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