Weekend reads: Debunking ‘When Prophecy Fails’; ‘Godfather of AI’ first to reach 1 million citations; ‘Cake causes herpes?’

Dear RW readers, can you spare $25?

The week at Retraction Watch featured:

• Author changes name, publishes 10 papers in journals that banned him
• Bug in Springer Nature metadata may be causing ‘significant, systemic’ citation inflation
• Math is back as Clarivate boosts integrity markers in Highly Cited Researchers list
• BMJ places expression of concern on heavily criticized stem cell paper
• AMA ethics journal shutters after 26 years
• Botanists plant a stake in oral cancer research with case report, now under investigation

Did you know that Retraction Watch and the Retraction Watch Database are  projects of The Center of Scientific Integrity?  Others include the Medical Evidence Project, the Hijacked Journal Checker, and the Sleuths in Residence Program. Help support this work.   

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

• “Debunking ‘When Prophecy Fails'”: Scholar claims documents reveal “ethical violations by the researchers.”
• “‘Godfather of AI’ becomes first person to hit one million citations.”
• “‘Cake causes herpes?’ – promiscuous dichotomisation induces false positives,” by James Heathers of the Medical Evidence Project and David Robert Grimes, one of our Sleuths in Residence. 
• “Paralysed patients left in dark after trial helping them to walk thrown into chaos.”
• “Recommendations for Scholarly Publishers and Journal Editors to Mitigate Barriers to Open Access Publishing for Researchers with Weak Institutional Ties.”
• “Shadow scholars: inside Kenya’s multibillion-dollar fake-essay industry.”
• A “case study in using flimsy copyright claims to inhibit research,” for which papers using the Morisky Medical Adherence Scale continue to face retractions.
• University finds “non-existent AI-generated references in paper; prof. says content not fabricated.” Meanwhile, the journal defends the work.
• Former professor’s case against German university, which fired her for violating academic standards, reaches federal court.
• “Pressure to publish is rising as research time shrinks, finds survey of scientists.”
• Researchers find “national tendencies in self-reference behavior may be related to societal-level trust within science.”
• “‘Independent’ expert who helped shape global vaping debate was paid thousands by Juul.” He also had a paper — linking smoking to lower COVID-19 risk — retracted in 2021.
• “‘Nobody knows what is still self-invented.’: How AI-generated fake research undermines trust in science.”
• “Can a Research Agent Write Convincing but Unsound Papers that Fool LLM Reviewers?”
• “The inner workings of a paper mill”: A pharmacologist on his “sting operation.” 
• “To reform universities, first tackle global rankings.”
• Researchers look into the “emerging threat” of papers with “hidden, injected prompts designed to manipulate AI [peer] reviewers into providing overly favorable evaluations.”
• “Drivers and penalties of retraction: An empirical study of Chinese medical researchers.”
• Researchers find “women’s representation among authors of retracted papers seems slightly lower than their representation as authors of scientific papers overall.” Another study looks at gender representation in highly cited authors. A link to two of our stories looking into gender differences in retraction rates.
• “Feasibility and Outcomes of a Scientist-Designed Peer Review Model Separating Quality and Impact.”
• Study looks at “characteristics, patterns, and causes of retractions in pediatric literature.”
• “Peer Review Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It.”
• “U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations.”
• “The ‘Free lunches’ index for assessing academics: a not entirely serious proposal.”

Upcoming talks

• “What to do next?” with our Ivan Oransky (November 18, International Research Integrity Conference, Sydney)
• “Retractions: On the Rise, But Not Enough” with our Ivan Oransky (November 19, Association for Interdisciplinary Meta-research and Open Science 2025 Conference, University of Sydney)

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