Category: ask retraction watch

Trump vs. trump: Does the candidate affect the use of trump cards in Bridge?

Jonathan
Jonathan Falk
Andrew Gelman
Andrew Gelman

Did that headline make sense? It isn’t really supposed to – it’s a sum-up of a recent satirical paper by Columbia statistician Andrew Gelman and Jonathan Falk of NERA Economic Consulting, entitled “NO TRUMP!: A statistical exercise in priming.” The paper – which they are presenting today during the International Conference on Machine Learning in New York City – estimates the effect of the Donald Trump candidacy on the use of no wild cards (known as trump cards) in the game of bridge. But, as they told us in an interview, the paper is about more than just that.

Retraction Watch: You have a remarkable hypothesis: “Many studies have demonstrated that people can be unconsciously goaded into different behavior through subtle psychological priming. We investigate the effect of the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency on the behavior of the top level of American bridge players.” Can you briefly explain your methodology, results and conclusions?  Continue reading Trump vs. trump: Does the candidate affect the use of trump cards in Bridge?

How does Jeremy Berg plan to address reproducibility in Science?

Jeremy Berg
Jeremy Berg, via AAAS

The former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the U.S. National Institutes of Health has a new job. On July 1st, biochemist Jeremy Berg will take the helm as the editor-in-chief of Science. He’s currently the associate senior vice chancellor for science strategy and planning in the health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. We spoke to him about challenges he’ll be facing in his new role: treating science’s replication problem, boosting transparency, and making papers as widely available as possible.  

You told us in an earlier conversation that diagnosing and treating science’s replication problem is major issue in publishing. Can you give us some specifics about how you plan to address it at Science? Continue reading How does Jeremy Berg plan to address reproducibility in Science?

Poll: Is duplication misconduct?

RW logoIf authors duplicate portions of their own work in multiple papers — such as descriptions of methods, a boilerplate background to their field, etc. — should that be considered misconduct?

Of course, to many journals, duplication — also known as “self-plagiarism” is a retractable offense. A recent letter to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI) from the Council on Governmental Relations asked the agency to consider it misconduct, and “include self-plagiarism in the definition of plagiarism.” More specifically, the letter — reported by the Report on Research Compliance — says to new ORI director Kathy Partin:

Continue reading Poll: Is duplication misconduct?

Poll: Should there be a statute of limitation on retractions?

With PubPeer and other online resources (such as PubMed Commons and our comment section), it’s never been easier for readers to raise public suspicions of published papers. But what should we do when we learn about potential problems in papers that are decades old, and all of the authors are deceased?

That’s the question we’re asking ourselves, after reading “Due process in the Twitter age,” this week’s editorial from Science editor Marcia McNutt.

She presents this compelling scenario:

Continue reading Poll: Should there be a statute of limitation on retractions?

Poll: Should co-authors of a scientific paper be allowed to change their minds?

lancetSince we reported Friday that multiple authors had asked to remove their names from a high-profile 2011 Lancet paper about a risky transplant surgery, a few readers have wondered: Should this be allowed?

To recap: The same day the journal announced it was tagging the controversial paper with an expression of concern, it issued a new erratum about the paper, removing three author names (one had already asked to be removed earlier). The highly cited paper has been under scrutiny ever since the last author, Paolo Macchiarini, has been facing allegations of misconduct, which most recently led to Macchiarini’s dismissal from the Karolinska Institutet. (Here’s our timeline of events to keep you abreast.)

It’s not surprising that a few of Macchiarini’s co-authors would want to distance themselves from this ever-expanding scandal, but should authors who originally signed onto a paper be able to change their minds? Let us know in our poll, below. Continue reading Poll: Should co-authors of a scientific paper be allowed to change their minds?

Poll: Should retracted papers be made available for free?

RW logoRecently, Robert Geller of the University of Tokyo brought an interesting issue to our attention. In following a particular paper that had been flagged with concerns on PubPeer, he saw that the journal had eventually retracted it. Even though the journal was sold under a subscription-based model, it made the retraction notice available outside the paywall– per the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The paper itself now included a link to the retraction notice – also recommended by COPE – but the retracted article remained behind the paywall. In other words, to read the retracted paper, non-subscribers would have to pay 3300 Yen (about $30).

Geller contacted us, concerned that the journal was continuing to profit from a retracted paper.

It’s a question we’ve never considered before: Continue reading Poll: Should retracted papers be made available for free?

Poll: Should there be a way to “self-retract” for honest error?

Daniele Fanelli
Daniele Fanelli

This week in Nature, Daniele Fanelli at Stanford made an interesting proposal: Set up a system of “self-retraction” that makes it crystal clear when a paper is pulled for honest error, rather than misconduct.

Fanelli, a whose work we have frequently covered, rightly notes that honest error represents a minority of retractions — around 20%. To remove any hint that a paper contains misconduct, Fanelli proposes designating self-retractions as those where all authors sign the retraction note:

Continue reading Poll: Should there be a way to “self-retract” for honest error?

Poll: If authors don’t address mistakes, is that misconduct?

cover_natureIn an interesting letter printed in today’s Nature, biologists Sophien Kamoun and Cyril Zipfel suggest that “failure by authors to correct their mistakes should be classified as scientific misconduct.”

They note that this policy is already in place at their institute, The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL).

We contacted Kamoun to ask what constituted a mistake, given that numerous papers have received queries, such as on sites like PubPeer, but it’s not clear whether those are legitimate mistakes. He told us: Continue reading Poll: If authors don’t address mistakes, is that misconduct?

Poll: Should “the Creator” paper have been retracted?

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 10.50.25 AMThe scientific community has been abuzz the last few days after some readers discovered language mentioning “the Creator” in a PLOS ONE paper about hand biomechanics — hours after which, the journal promptly retracted the paper.

But not everyone agrees with that decision. In one comment thread attached to the paper, a writer claiming to be an author says the language was a translation mistake, and was a reference to Nature, not God — and, as a result, asks the journal to correct (not retract) the paper. Others, such as blogger “dr24hours,” agree.

So what do you think, readers? Should PLOS ONE have retracted “Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living?” Take our poll below.  Continue reading Poll: Should “the Creator” paper have been retracted?

Ask Retraction Watch: What to do when papers omit relevant citations?

Photo by Bilal Kamoon via flickr
Photo by Bilal Kamoon via flickr

We’ve all seen the papers. You know, the ones that report a finding without citing the group that presented the same result years before. Or, more egregiously, claim outright to be the first to report it, when a simple literature search would reveal that not to be the case.

It’s a problem that affects every area of research: Authors omitting key citations, making the results appear more novel than they actually are. Sometimes it’s the result of an innocent oversight, sometimes an outright intent to deceive. The question is: Continue reading Ask Retraction Watch: What to do when papers omit relevant citations?