Weekend reads: JAMA editor placed on leave pending investigation; Harvard prof sanctioned for Epstein ties; when bad science goes uncorrected

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The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• “Riddled with errors”: Study of cell phones and breast cancer retracted
• Dismissive reviews: A cancer on the body of knowledge
• A journal retracts a paper called “transparently ridiculous” — and an author says thank you
• Paper claiming presence of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy in 2019 earns expression of concern
• Editor who opined on author excuses has paper subjected to an expression of concern
• Journal of the paranormal has its first retraction

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up to 90.

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

• JAMA’s editor in chief, Howard Bauchner, has been placed on leave “pending results of an independent investigation” into comments about racism by a deputy editor of the journal.
• A Harvard professor has been sanctioned for “his extensive contacts with convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.”
• “Scholars embracing this view are essentially admitting that bad science may go uncorrected in the official record.” An in-depth look at attitudes about self-correction and replication “based on interviews with 60 members of the Board of Reviewing Editors for the journal Science.”
• “The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science.”
• “In this newsletter, we will round up papers that do the vital work of reproducing a previous result or reporting the absence of one.” Meet “Null and Noteworthy.”
• “Our results show that even after years of discontinuing, hundreds of active potentially predatory journals are still highly visible in the Scopus database.”
• Make it five: We have now been asked by yet another Elsevier journal to review a paper on COVID-19.
• “Are retractions an indicator of integrity?”
• “Just because it’s in a journal doesn’t mean it’s going to hold up. Trust but verify.”
• “A former chemistry student has been sentenced to at least seven years in jail after admitting to poisoning his roommate with the highly toxic metal thallium.”
• “So crucial, in fact, that no matter how carefully you follow the instructions in my experimental methods section to construct an electrode out of a stainless steel rod ‘encased in epoxy resin (Araldite Standard)’, you would almost certainly fail.”
• “In our study, published in the journal Scientometrics, we analyzed the Altmetric Attention Score of more than 200,000 articles published in seven major journals. We found that it displayed no clear gender bias.”
• “Science relies on constructive criticism. Here’s how to keep it useful and respectful.”
• “Using panel data methods, we show that the publication in a peer reviewed journal results in around twice the number of yearly citations relative to working papers that never get published in a journal.”
• Lower-ranked “journals are statistically more likely to include research and researchers from outside of the core anglophone countries, making an important contribution to the diversity of scholarship beyond the dominating western and English-language discourse.”
• Los Angeles Magazine retracted an article about allegations of corruption in the marijuana industry — but the target of the false claims will still be investigated by the city where he works.
• “Many of his citations are completely false and do not support his claims whatsoever.”
• “One may wonder, do scholars respond to rankings in this way because they are just carried away in the moment?”
• “‘Mein Kampf’ and the ‘Feminazis’: What Three Academics’ Hitler Hoax Really Reveals About ‘Wokeness.'”
• “It’s The End Of Citation As We Know It & I Feel Fine,” says Brian Frye.
• “Critical velocity and the significance of the imminent retraction of 2020 NFPA 502’s Annex D critical velocity equations – a cautionary note to practitioners.”
• U.S. “DOJ Targets Fraud In Medical Research Trial In The Era Of COVID-19.”
• Two Dhaka University professors forfeited half of a grant “after their final report was found plagiarised and full of errors.”
• “Row erupts over university’s use of research metrics in job-cut decisions.”
• “Scratching the surface: the use of sheepskin parchment to deter textual erasure in early modern legal deeds.”
• Why the retraction of claims about the “newest Sapphic texts” was inevitable, according to Jona Lendering.
• “Researchers should refrain from drawing on newspaper reports as a sole source of information for such studies.” A group of authors critique a paper.

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