We have obtained a copy of the report that led to the investigation of Jens Förster, the social psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, which is calling for the retraction of a 2012 article by the researcher for manipulated data.
As we reported earlier, Förster has denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
Continue reading Anatomy of an inquiry: The report that led to the Jens Förster investigation
Retraction Watch has obtained an email from Jens Förster, the social psychologist in the Netherlands who, as Dutch media reported this week, was the target of a misconduct investigation at the University of Amsterdam. The inquiry led to the call for the retraction of a paper by Förster and a colleague, Markus Denzler, over concerns of data manipulation.
Förster denies those claims and said Denzler was not involved in the heavy lifting for the study in question: Continue reading Social psychologist Förster denies misconduct, calls charge “terrible misjudgment”
The University of Amsterdam has called for the retraction of a 2011 paper by two psychology researchers after a school investigation concluded that the article contained bogus data, the Dutch press are reporting.
The paper, “Sense Creative! The Impact of Global and Local Vision, Hearing, Touching, Tasting and Smelling on Creative and Analytic Thought,” was written by Jens Förster and Markus Denzler and published in Social Psychological & Personality Science. It purported to find that:
Continue reading New Dutch psychology scandal? Inquiry cites data manipulation, calls for retraction
Dirk Smeesters, the former psychology professor at Erasmus University found to have committed misconduct, has had another paper retracted.
Here’s the notice: Continue reading Retraction four appears for Dirk Smeesters
Last September we wrote about the case of Mart Bax, an anthropologist once of the Free University in Amsterdam who allegedly fabricated elements in some of his papers, and claimed to have written more than 60 that do not exist:
Bax, who studied an Irish town he called Patricksville, a Dutch pilgrimage site he called Neerdonk, and Medjugorje, a Bosnian pilgrimage site, retired from the Free University in 2002. The university began investigating Bax’s work last year after science journalist Frank van Kolfschooten published Ontspoorde Wetenschap (“Derailed science”). In that book, van Kolfschooten raised questions about Bax’s work into an alleged massacre at Medjugorje during the Bosnian War. Bax responded to those questions in April of this year.
Here’s the university’s 67-page report, in Dutch. The university will not take legal action against Bax. It is unclear from the translations we’ve seen whether any of the papers will be retracted, but we’ll update with anything we learn.
Well, at least part of that ambiguity has cleared, with the retraction of a 2000 paper by Bax in Ethnic and Racial Studies. The article was titled “Warlords, priests and the politics of ethnic cleansing: a case-study from rural Bosnia Hercegovina” and has been cited 20 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge. Here’s its abstract: Continue reading First retraction appears for Dutch anthropologist Mart Bax
On Wednesday, we reported on a Nature retraction of a paper whose corresponding author had also had a Cell paper retracted, and had been found to have committed a “violation of academic integrity” by Utrecht University. Today, we present the back story of how those retractions came to be, from another co-author of both papers, Ben Scheres, of Wageningen University: Continue reading “I am deeply saddened and disturbed:” Co-author of retracted Nature paper reveals how problems came to light
A 2013 paper in Nature that was among those whose first or last author had committed a “violation of academic integrity,” according to Utrecht University, has been retracted.
Here’s the notice: for “CLASP-mediated cortical microtubule organization guides PIN polarization axis,” whose corresponding author was Pankaj Dhonukshe: Continue reading Nature paper by researcher found to have violated academic integrity retracted
Erasmus University in Rotterdam has issued its final report on psychologist Dirk Smeesters, concluding that the former Erasmus faculty member had committed research misconduct in a total of seven papers. Three of those articles already have been retracted in the case, as we reported in December 2012.
The committee investigation is in fact a follow-up inquiry — thus its name, the Smeesters Follow-Up Investigation Committee — prompted by concerns that an initial probe was incomplete. According to the report, the four-member panel conducted an “in-depth analysis” of every paper Smeesters, who left the university’s Rotterdam School of Management in July 2012, was “actively” involved in. That turned out to be 22 articles (not including three others already retracted).
The final report is worth reading, presented here as a pdf. The four articles are: Continue reading Final report in Smeesters case serves up seven retractions
We have an update on the case of Pankaj Dhonukshe, a scientist about whom we reported in November. Utrecht University has found that Dhonukshe, a former researcher at the Dutch university, committed “a violation of academic integrity” in work that led to a number of papers, including one published in Nature and once since retracted from Cell.
Here’s the university’s statement: Continue reading Utrecht University finds “violation of academic integrity” by former researcher
Neurology has issued an expression of concern over a 2013 article by a group of scientists in The Netherlands and the United States who found a potentially devastating error in their analysis.
The article, “Structural and functional brain connectivity in presymptomatic familial frontotemporal dementia,” came from the lab of John C. van Swieten, of Erasmus University in The Netherlands. According to the abstract of the article: Continue reading Neurology expresses concern over dementia study after authors report error in analysis