Ivan Oransky

Weekend reads: Former ORI director speaks out; Is peer review broken?

Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s what was happening elsewhere on the web in scientific publishing and related issues: Continue reading Weekend reads: Former ORI director speaks out; Is peer review broken?

Journal that retracted conspiracy ideation-climate skepticism paper says it did not “cave into threats”

Frontiers in Psychology, which last month formally retracted a controversial paper linking climate skepticism to conspiracy ideation, says it did not cave in to threats from skeptics, contrary to what a lot of news reports and commentary implied or claimed.

For example, summarizing a number of those reports this morning, before Frontiers had issued its statement, co-author Stephan Lewandowsky wrote on his blog:

By and large, the mainstream media coverage seems to have picked up on what’s really at issue here, namely academic freedom and editorial intimidation by a small band of vociferous individuals.

Here’s the statement, in which Frontiers stresses the rights of the people Lewandowsky and his colleagues wrote about:

Continue reading Journal that retracted conspiracy ideation-climate skepticism paper says it did not “cave into threats”

MS paper second to fall following University of Queensland investigation

Two former University of Queensland researchers have lost another paper following an investigation into their work.

In September, the university announced that a paper in the European Journal of Neurology by Bruce Murdoch and Caroline Barwood would be retracted because

no primary data can be located, and no evidence has been found that the study described in the article was conducted.

The university continued its investigation, and announced today that: Continue reading MS paper second to fall following University of Queensland investigation

Does publicly questioning papers lead to more corrections and retractions?

As Retraction Watch readers will likely recall, Paul Brookes ran Science-Fraud.org anonymously until early 2013, when he was outed and faced legal threats that forced him to shut down the site. There are a lot of lessons to be drawn from the experience, some of which Brookes discussed with Science last month.

Today, PeerJ published Brookes’ analysis of the response to critiques on Science-Fraud.org. It’s a compelling examination that suggests public scrutiny of the kind found on the site — often harsh, but always based solidly on evidence — is linked to more corrections and retractions in the literature.

Brookes looked at

497 papers for which data integrity had been questioned either in public or in private. As such, the papers were divided into two sub-sets: a public set of 274 papers discussed online, and the remainder a private set of 223 papers not publicized.

His results?

Continue reading Does publicly questioning papers lead to more corrections and retractions?

Late resveratrol researcher Dipak Das manages to revise and publish paper from the grave

Follow this timeline, if you would:

August 14, 2013: Former UConn researcher Dipak Das, who was found to have committed misconduct, submits a paper to Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity.
September 19, 2013: Das dies.
October 17, 2013: Das submits revisions to his paper in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity.
October 18, 2013: Paper accepted.
January 12, 2014: Paper published.

That would appear to be what the timeline on the paper — which lists Das as corresponding author, along with a Gmail address — says:

Continue reading Late resveratrol researcher Dipak Das manages to revise and publish paper from the grave

Novartis Diovan scandal claims two more papers

A complicated story involving Novartis’s valsartan (Diovan) has led to the retraction of two more papers, one cascading from the other.

Last September, The Lancet retracted the Jikei Heart Study after a slew of retractions of related work prompted an investigation of valsartan research. That investigation found evidence of data manipulation and the failure of one researcher to note his Novartis affiliation. The company has apologized.

Here’s one retraction, from Diabetes Care, for “The Shiga Microalbuminuria Reduction Trial (SMART) Group. Reduction of Microalbuminuria in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: The Shiga Microalbuminuria Reduction Trial (SMART):”

Continue reading Novartis Diovan scandal claims two more papers

Scientists, do you feel bullied by critics? These chemists do

feldheim — Daniel Feldheim, via UC-Boulder

A new site, Stand Up 2 Science Bullies, launched last week:

www.standup2sciencebullies.com is a forum for scientists to share their experience and provide advice pertaining to scientific bullying. We welcome questions and comments from all scientists including students, faculty, and members of industry. We sincerely hope that this forum will serve as an informative resource for scientists who feel that they are being treated unfairly by other scientists.

Continue reading Scientists, do you feel bullied by critics? These chemists do

RIKEN finds two “instances of research misconduct” in STAP stem cell work

Japan’s RIKEN research center has found misconduct in work that led to two controversial Nature papers, purporting to show an easy way to create stem cells, that have been dogged by criticism for months.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s statement about “six items [RIKEN] has been investigating:”

Continue reading RIKEN finds two “instances of research misconduct” in STAP stem cell work

Some authors seem to cite their own retracted studies. Should we be concerned?

Some authors of retracted studies persist in citing their retracted work, according to a new study in Science and Engineering Ethics that calls the trend “very concerning.”