Weekend reads: Sokal on Sokal Squared hoax; is open access enough?; replication in the humanities

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The week at Retraction Watch featured a showdown over a paper on abortion laws that left no one happy; the retraction of a highly cited paper for “overlap;” and three retractions for researchers whose university stopped responding to a publisher. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:

• • “What I am contending, rather, is that journal editors do not deserve to be protected from this type of risk.” Alan Sokal weighs in on whether one of the authors of the “Sokal Squared” hoax should face sanctions. (Inside Higher Ed)
  • An “investigation of a researcher who published hoax papers misses the point of ethical oversight.” (Jeffrey Flier, Times Higher Education)
  • “The advent of Plan S promises to turbocharge the open access movement, but amid pushback from researchers and publishers, Rachael Pells examines whether the demand for published research truly merits the disruption.” (Times Higher Education)
  • “Scientific societies worry Plan S will make them shutter journals, slash services,” reports Jeffrey Brainard. (Science)
  • “Over the years, I have become convinced that while open access has a real chance to solve the important issue of access to research findings, it does not address the problems research journals bring to the process of reporting research findings, whether open access or not.” (Vitek Tracz, Research Information)
  • “‘The’ humanities are not in need of a replicability drive. They are better off without solutions designed for the sciences.” (J. Britt Holbrook, Bart Penders, Sarah de Rijcke, CWTS blog)
  • “We have recorded 491 exchanges with 89 individuals involved in research ethics and governance approvals, generating 193 pages of email text excluding attachments.” (Mila Petrova and Stephen Barclay, BMC Medical Ethics)
  • This sentence needs grammatical help. Also, we have questions. “The story published on January 18, 2019 by Frankie Lee, sales rep. of YUNDA has been retracted due to inaccurate information and without the consent and authorization from YUNDA.”
  • How a “young German professor of medicine and midwifery from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries” had the foresight to warn against scientific misconduct. (Allen Gaw, The Business of Discovery)
  • “Although there is a gathering consensus that data openness is a boon to scientific progress, there remains disagreement within the scientific community about how and when to share.” (Viviane Callier, The Scientist)
  • “So how then can you know when studies are based on solid science?” (Bottom Line Inc)
  • “The gender publication gap is therefore statistically significant for publications in ordinary and top journals. This gender gap remains for top journal publications, even after controlling for individual and organizational variables.” (Sabrina Mayer & Justus Rathmann, LSE Impact Blog)
  • “A scientist who was dismissed from her job with the National Weather Service after she was accused of spying for China is suing the U.S. government, accusing authorities of malicious prosecution and false arrest.” (WCPO)
  • “A civil lawsuit was filed by UC Berkeley student Ronald Rivers on Jan. 18 against the UC Board of Regents and UC Berkeley for the alleged ‘intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress caused by the false accusation of plagiarism.'” (Andreana Chou, The Daily Californian)
  • “UK universities could be hauled in front of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee if they fail to report clinical trials adequately, the committee’s chair has warned.” (Sophie Inge, Research Information)
  • A company is “offering a ‘complete PhD service’ for up to £36,000,” including up to 100,000 words of “model writing assistance,” reports John Morgan in Times Higher Education.
  • “Expert witness David Egilman wins billions—and makes enemies—as he fights companies over public health.” (Douglas Starr, Science)
  • “An animal-welfare group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, accusing a Bedford-based lab of ‘gross’ abuse and negligence resulting in the deaths of ‘multiple’ animals, including at least one by suffocation.” (Marie Szaniszlo, Boston Herald)
  • As eLife editor-in-chief and Nobelist Randy Schekman prepares to step down, he offers some reflections. (eLife)
  • A researcher admits that “he failed to declare £100,000 from the manufacturer making one of the types of vaginal mesh implant he was assessing.” (Lucy Adams, BBC)
  • “Indian academics lead the world in publishing in fake journals,” writes Pushkar Sinha, “tarring the whole education sector.” (Scroll.in)
  • “Publishers could be doing so many different things that could be helpful,” says Elaine Westbrooks. (Research Information)
  • “Six days a week they may write papers to retain their jobs for ‘MCI approved’ journals. Sundays can be kept for genuine papers on subjects of their interest such as case reports, review articles, letters to the editor, editorials (this one was written on a Sunday), and so on.” (Amitav Banerjee, Medical Journal of Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, including a riff on a study testing on a simple way to avoid predatory journal spam)
  • “A year and a half after chemistry preprint servers debuted, authors and publishers are getting on board,” reports Tien Nguyen. (C&EN)
  • “In October, he was accused by staff of plagiarising the new team song he composed for the Canberra Cavalry in 2017, due to its apparent similarities to the Go Cubs Go! anthem…” (Sally Pryor & Sherryn Groch, The Canberra Times)
  • China’s government has criticized the scientist behind the CRISPRed babies experiment, who has lost his university job. (Dennis Normile, Science)
  • “Please stop using this graph to argue your topic is popular.” (Willslab blog)
  • A Mainz professor is fighting to win her PhD back after allegations of plagiarism. (Jochen Zenthofer, Frankfurter Allgemeine).
  • A “local association that fights against plagiarism in Romania’s academic sector…will ask the Ministry of Education to cancel its past decision and withdraw the title of PhD, ‘granted under illegal conditions’, to former head of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) Laura Codruta Kovesi, according to a press release.” (Romania Insider)
  • “The errors in our stories are regrettable, particularly at a time when the accuracy and fairness of news organizations is under constant assault.” ProPublica makes corrections to a story about Oregon’s courts.
  • Dear Editor: A wish list of 15 things authors would like journal editors to avoid, via Madhukar Pai and colleagues. (Nature Research Microbiology Community)
  • How should researchers account for the increasing workload of data science? (Michael Scroggins and Irene Pasquetto, preprint) 
  • Experts in Japan raise the alarm about predatory conferences. (Shinpei Torii, The Mainichi)

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