Category: frontiers

“[W]e did not succeed:” Frontiers editor on handling of controversial retraction

frontiersControversy continues to swirl around the retraction of a Frontiers paper linking climate skepticism to conspiratorial ideation, with three editors resigning from various Frontiers journals, and competing narratives. The authors say the journal retracted the paper because of a fear of legal threats, while the journal, and critics of the study, has said it was withdrawn because the paper did not protect the rights of its subjects.

Whatever the issues with the paper, we and others have been saying that the journal stumbled since the study was first retracted last year. The publisher continues to insist, for example, that there is no contradiction between their retraction notice — agreed upon by the editors and the authors — which said that the journal “did not identify any issues with the academic and ethical aspects of the study” and a later statement saying that the paper “did not sufficiently protect the rights of the studied subjects.”

Today, editor-in-chief Henry Markham acknowledged missteps in a blog post. Here’s how it starts:

Continue reading “[W]e did not succeed:” Frontiers editor on handling of controversial retraction

Chief specialty editor resigns from Frontiers in wake of controversial retraction

frontiersAn editor at a Frontiers journal has resigned to protest the publisher’s decision to retract the controversial “Recursive Fury” paper that linked climate skepticism to conspiratorial ideation.

Ugo Bardi was chief specialty editor of Frontiers in Energy Research: Energy Systems and Policy. He writes on his blog:

…my opinion is that, with their latest statement and their decision to retract the paper, Frontiers has shown no respect for authors nor for their own appointed referees and editors. But the main problem is that we have here another example of the climate of intimidation that is developing around the climate issue.

Continue reading Chief specialty editor resigns from Frontiers in wake of controversial retraction

Co-author of retracted conspiracy ideation-climate skepticism paper addresses apparent contradictions

Lewandowsky
Lewandowsky

We — and others — have been scratching our heads about the real reasons for the formal retraction on March 21 of a Frontiers in Psychology paper since the journal issued a statement on the subject on Friday that seemed to contradict the retraction notice and that certainly differed from accounts on some blogs. Today, we learned a few more details about what happened in the year between when the paper was provisionally removed and then formally retracted from a post by Stephan Lewandowsky, one of the co-authors of the paper.

The March 21 statement, writes Lewandowsky, Continue reading Co-author of retracted conspiracy ideation-climate skepticism paper addresses apparent contradictions

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

frontiersFrontiers 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”

Controversial paper linking conspiracy ideation to climate change skepticism formally retracted

frontiersA year after being clumsily removed from the web following complaints, a controversial paper about “the possible role of conspiracist ideation in the rejection of science” is being retracted.

The paper, “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation,” was authored by Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook, Klaus Oberauer, and Michael Marriott, and published in Frontiers in Psychology: Personality Science and Individual Differences.

Continue reading Controversial paper linking conspiracy ideation to climate change skepticism formally retracted

Doing the right thing: Authors retract brain paper with “systematic human error in coding”

fronthumneuroA group of Swiss neurologists have lost their 2013 article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience after reporting that their data were rendered null by coding errors.

The article, “Spontaneous pre-stimulus fluctuations in the activity of right fronto-parietal areas influence inhibitory control performance,” purported to find that: Continue reading Doing the right thing: Authors retract brain paper with “systematic human error in coding”

Gut instinct: Intestinal flora paper yanked for plagiarism

frontcellinfectmicroA group of researchers in China has lost a paper on the human microbiome in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology for cannibalizing much of it from previously published work by other scientists.

The article, titled “Human gut microbiota: dysbiosis and manipulation,” appeared on Sept. 27, 2012, and was written by a team from the Beijing Genomics Institute-Shenzhen. It has been cited just once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge, by another paper in the same journal.

According to the retraction notice: Continue reading Gut instinct: Intestinal flora paper yanked for plagiarism

Image manipulation leads to fifth retraction for plant research group

plant scienceA plant scientist at the Colorado State University has retracted a fifth paper.

Here’s the notice for “Influence of ATP-binding cassette transporters in root exudation of phytoalexins, signals, and in disease resistance, a paper originally published in July 2012:

The Journal, Chief Editor and the Authors wish to retract the Original Research article cited above in its entirety. Based on information reported after publication, this article was found to have images that were inappropriately manipulated (Figure 1B: actin panel; Figure 6A: PR1, PR5; Figure 6B: AtATH6, AtATH10). The authors and the journal regret the errors and regret any inconvenience to the readers of Frontiers in Plant Science.

The last author of the now-retracted paper, Jorge Vivanco, has had four previous retractions, including one in Nature. He tells us: Continue reading Image manipulation leads to fifth retraction for plant research group

Frontiers papers on GMO debate, diabetes retracted for improperly cited text

frontiers plantThe author of a review article on diabetes has been forced to retract the paper after it emerged that he failed to properly credit some of the text — an omission we generally associate with the word plagiarism.

The article, “Colonic flora, probiotics, obesity and diabetes,” was written by Paul Marik, of Eastern Virginia Medical School, and appeared in July 2012 in Frontiers in Endocrinology. It has been cited once, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

Here’s the retraction notice:

Continue reading Frontiers papers on GMO debate, diabetes retracted for improperly cited text

Update: Lewandowsky et al paper on conspiracist ideation “provisionally removed” due to complaints

frontiersLast week, we covered the complicated story of a paper by Stephan Lewandowsky and colleagues that had been removed — or at least all but the abstract — from its publisher’s site. Our angle on the story was how Frontiers, which publishes Frontiers in Personality Science and Individual Differences, where the study appeared, had handled the withdrawal. It happened without any notice, and no text appeared to let the reader know why the paper had vanished.

Today, Frontiers posted a note to readers on top of the paper’s abstract: Continue reading Update: Lewandowsky et al paper on conspiracist ideation “provisionally removed” due to complaints