The week at Retraction Watch featured the retraction of a much-discussed paper on using blockchain to prevent scientific misconduct, and a researcher who lost nine studies at once from a single journal. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: The editor who’s a dog; the fake author; a monument to peer review
Author: Ivan Oransky
Weekend reads: A hoax involving a “conceptual penis;” fake reagents; plagiarism irony
The week at Retraction Watch featured a survey of researchers in China with an alarming result, and asked whether philosophy has a plagiarism problem. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: A hoax involving a “conceptual penis;” fake reagents; plagiarism irony
Weekend reads: Prison for sharing an article?; which country has most fake peer review retractions; counterfeit reagents
The week at Retraction Watch featured a look at a school where everyone has published in possibly predatory journals, and doubts about a study of doing math unconsciously. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Prison for sharing an article?; which country has most fake peer review retractions; counterfeit reagents
Weekend reads: A modern-day witch hunt; overly honest limitations; doing the right thing
The week at Retraction Watch featured the launch of an award for doing the right thing, and a hijacked journal getting its name back. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: A modern-day witch hunt; overly honest limitations; doing the right thing
Weekend reads: New calls for retraction; more on fake peer review; how long does peer review take?
The week at Retraction Watch featured a look at how long journals take to respond to retraction requests, and news of a $10 million settlement for research misconduct allegations. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: New calls for retraction; more on fake peer review; how long does peer review take?
Weekend reads: A “culture of fear?”; blogs vs. academic papers; neurosurgery retractions on the rise
The week at Retraction Watch featured a new record for most retractions by a single journal, and an impassioned plea from a biostatistician for journals to clean up their act. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: A “culture of fear?”; blogs vs. academic papers; neurosurgery retractions on the rise
Weekend reads: Death of a cancer lab; women economists’ papers are more readable; self-correction grows
The week at Retraction Watch featured a study of why researchers commit misconduct, and the story of former Northwestern scientist who sued the university for defamation. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: Death of a cancer lab; women economists’ papers are more readable; self-correction grows
Why do researchers commit misconduct? A new preprint offers some clues
“Why Do Scientists Fabricate And Falsify Data?” That’s the start of the title of a new preprint posted on bioRxiv this week by researchers whose names Retraction Watch readers will likely find familiar. Daniele Fanelli, Rodrigo Costas, Ferric Fang (a member of the board of directors of our parent non-profit organization), Arturo Casadevall, and Elisabeth Bik have all studied misconduct, retractions, and bias. In the new preprint, they used a set of papers from PLOS ONE shown in earlier research to have included manipulated images to test what factors were linked to such misconduct. The results confirmed some earlier work, but also provided some evidence contradicting previous findings. We spoke to Fanelli by email.
Retraction Watch (RW): This paper builds on a previous study by three of your co-authors, on the rate of inappropriate image manipulation in the literature. Can you explain how it took advantage of those findings, and why that was an important data set? Continue reading Why do researchers commit misconduct? A new preprint offers some clues
Weekend reads: When reproducibility is weaponized; Internet-based paraphrasing tools; go parasites!
The week at Retraction Watch featured a predatory journal sting involving a fake disorder from Seinfeld, and a study with disturbing findings about how retracted papers are cited. Here’s what was happening elsewhere: Continue reading Weekend reads: When reproducibility is weaponized; Internet-based paraphrasing tools; go parasites!
“Failure is an essential part of science:” A Q&A with the author of a new book on reproducibility
Reproducibility is everywhere recently, from the pages of scientific journals to the halls of the National Academy of Sciences, and today it lands in bookstores across the U.S. Longtime NPR correspondent Richard Harris has written Rigor Mortis (Basic Books), which is published today. (Full disclosure: I blurbed the book, writing that “Harris deftly weaves gripping tales of sleuthing with possible paths out of what some call a crisis.”) Harris answered some questions about the book, and the larger issues, for us.
Retraction Watch (RW): Rigor Mortis begins with the story of the 2012 Nature paper by C. Glenn Begley and Lee Ellis that is now famous for sounding the alarm about reproducibility in basic cancer research. But as you document, this is not a problem that began in 2012. When did scientists first start realizing there was a problem? Continue reading “Failure is an essential part of science:” A Q&A with the author of a new book on reproducibility