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The week at Retraction Watch featured:
- The withdrawal of a COVID-19 scoring tool based on Surgisphere data following NEJM, Lancet retractions
- Fallout — including suspensions and resignations — from a controversial essay in a chemistry journal
- News of a sixth retraction for a criminology researcher
- Two retractions for a prolific anesthesiology researcher
Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
- “Don’t blame last week’s journal retractions on the scary pace of the pandemic. ‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ scandals like this seem to happen all the time.”
- “Yes, this is a wake-up call. But we’ve had the wake-up call for years.”
- “Amid an outcry over claims of racism in an academic paper and counter-cries of threats to academic freedom this past week, the South African Journal of Sciences has stood its ground against calls to withdraw a controversial article by a University of Cape Town professor.”
- An editor resigns “over a dispute concerning a forthcoming paper that features personal attacks against another author.”
- The retractions “are great examples of why science needs more of a ‘In God We Trust, everyone else needs to show their data’ approach.”
- “The clinical research industry is a mess that needs cleaning up.”
- “A lot of people in publishing would like this to somehow be a mandate or a referendum on preprints and how dangerous they are,” he said. “But I don’t know. I’m seeing a lot of really problematic stuff in prestigious peer-reviewed journals.”
- “The fight against research misconduct and misinformation should be, more than ever, a researcher responsibility.”
- “Our results show that PubPeer, although external to the scientific publication process, contributes more to the correction of science than negative citations.”
- “The squandering of money that goes into paying fees for publishing in [predatory journals] and/or predatory conferences in developing countries like Peru is something to which sanctions must be imposed.”
- “And the minority of researchers who did not recognize some types of plagiarism as plagiarism was larger among China-based respondents than among Europe-based respondents.”
- “’It’s like the guy went crazy with Photoshop,’ said one expert in scientific image manipulation.”
- “The experience led me to rethink my approach to collaborations.” How one researcher, Moamen Elmassry, learned to speak up for himself about authorship.
- Was it really the “Hwang scandal,” or was it the “Hwang and Schatten scandal”? Another look at a massive scandal from 2005.
- A conversation between scientific sleuth Elisabeth Bik and our Ivan Oransky. And a profile of Bik.
- “Fifty-four scientists have lost their jobs as a result of NIH probe into foreign ties.”
- “Retractions are essential to keep the scientific literature trustworthy, but the notices for them are inconsistent and often uninformative.” A call for reform.
- “The millions currently being invested in research will be of little use if it is not conducted, published and used with integrity.”
- “As indicated by several published studies over the last decade, and NIH’s own analyses, there remains a serious and disturbing disparity in NIH R01 award rates between White and Black applicants.”
- “In the future, our review process of big data research will include reviewers with such specific expertise.”
- “A sufficiently large number of young researchers exposed to research ethics trainings would essentially provide a research community some degree of lasting herd immunity at its broadest base.”
- “While accelerating morbidity and mortality from the COVID-19 pandemic has been paralleled by early and rapid clinical investigation, many trials lack features to optimise their scientific value.”
- “The present fiasco and ensuing crisis should surely provoke a strong reaction from the agencies and journals and research centers that are now on the front line.”
- “For co-authors, guarantors, peer reviewers, institutions, and journals—the key people responsible for maintaining scientific integrity—this should be our mantra: Can I, or someone I trust, vouch for each aspect of the study?”
- “What to do when your research comes under fire.”
- “In fact, Mr. Thornton never uttered any of the fictitious alleged quotations. Specifically, the article contained six false and mythical quotations…” A retraction.
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“Fifty-four scientists have lost their jobs as a result of NIH probe into foreign ties.” Is there a good reason to keep their names a secret? Serious question.
I don’t understand what is wrong with the South African UCT paper. All it did was try to figure out some reasons why black people are not interested in conservation studies. The intent was to try and figure out ways to attract more black students.
It acknowledges socioeconomic issues right away and at the end says that much of the variance was left unexplained. I read the associated black academic caucus statement and wasn’t sure what they were complaining about. It was supposed to be just a starting point.
Does anyone here understand? Is it racist to say that poor people don’t want to be poor?
It depends if you are on the side of Cultural Revolution or not. If you are, you can say anything you want… until you are made counter revolutionaire…
Plot the median income between European ancestry people income in US. You would find staggering difference between Albanians and Swedish for example. Now replace the ancestry with races and show to anyone else and ask: evidence of racism…?
I think part of the complaint is that it’s a fairly sloppy study that can easily have items taken out of context.
For instance, I’m not fully across what the Fallist protests actually were about and mean within South Africa, but its very easy for “Black South Africans don’t care about the environment and only want money” to take on a life of its own as a comment, despite the recognised issues in the paper.
A convenience sample of n=211 UCT students that they study says is unrepresentative yet still draws broader conclusions from is an issue, as is the apparent double-barrelled items (e.g. “conservation biology [is] colonial AND should be scrapped”).
This analysis probably wasn’t strong enough to publish two mere pages on and required a much more robust study and commentary to back up any started findings.