Jesús Lemus — the veterinary researcher whose work colleagues have had trouble verifying, including being unable to confirm the identity of one of his co-authors — has notched his ninth retraction.
It’s a clear and comprehensive notice, from the Journal of Applied Ecology, despite the bizarre nature of the case: Continue reading “Ephemeral nature” of samples — and co-author — leads to ninth Jesús Lemus retraction
Last month, we covered the retraction of a paper by A.M.K. El-Ghonemy, of Al-Jouf University in Saudi Arabia. The engineer now has a second retraction in the same journal, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
Here’s the notice for “Waste energy recovery in sea water reverse osmosis desalination plants, Part-1: Review”: Continue reading Saudi engineer loses second fresh water paper for plagiarism
Scientific experiments are like recipes: With the right components and the proper steps, the end result can be a thing of beauty. But if you start with a cup of salt instead of a cup of flour, well, even the neighbor’s schnauzer won’t touch that batch of sugar cookies.
That’s a little like the situation we have in “Controls on topographic dependence and temporal instability in catchment-scale soil moisture patterns,” a paper published in February in Water Resources Research by Michael Coleman and Jeffrey Niemann of Colorado State University.
According to the notice:
Continue reading Calibration error sends moisture paper down the drain
Note (4/9/13): John McArthur contacted us with a few corrections, which we have made below.
The Journal of Contaminant Hydrology has retracted a 2008 paper by a group of Indian scientists for plagiarism and the failure to adequately reference their sources.
What makes this case somewhat unusual is that the journal allowed the authors to issue a correction (of the mega variety) attempting to acknowledge the problems, but then evidently decided that the patient was too sick to live — and that part of the disease was iatrogenic.
Here’s the retraction notice for the article, titled “Hydrogeochemical behavior of arsenic-enriched groundwater in the deltaic environment: Comparison between two study sites in West Bengal, India”:
Continue reading Arsenic-in-the-water paper with “interesting data” first corrected, now retracted
Last 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
Last year, Stephan Lewandowsky and colleagues posted a paper, scheduled for an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, with a, shall we say, provocative title:
NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax
An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science
In an interview last year with Lewandowsky, NPR gathered some of the reactions to the paper — which was formally published two days ago — from those it profiled: Continue reading Why publishers should explain why papers disappear: The complicated Lewandowsky study saga
The carcasses are piling up.
Jesús A. Lemus now has eight retractions. Here’s the notice for the most recent: Continue reading Jesús Lemus notches his eighth retraction
A Saudi engineer has lost his 2012 paper in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews for plagiarizing from two previously published articles, including one in the same journal.
The article, titled “Fresh water production from/by atmospheric air for arid regions, using solar energy: Review,” was written by A.M.K. El-Ghonemy, of Al-Jouf University.
According to the retraction notice:
Continue reading Fresh water paper proves recycled, gets retracted
Today brings two journal editorials about misconduct and retractions. They take, if we may, a bit of an optimistic and perhaps even blindered approach.
In an editorial titled “Scientific misconduct occurs, but is rare,” Boston University’s Richard Primack, editor of Biological Conservation, highlights a Corrigendum of a paper by Jesus Angel Lemus, the veterinary researcher who has retracted seven papers: Continue reading Not in my journal: Two editors take stock of misconduct in their fields — and don’t find much
Sometimes, the headlines just write themselves.
Two scientists in India have had a paper retracted after it became clear they had plagiarized a study by a Swedish researcher. Here’s the notice for “A conceptual model of people’s approach to sanitation,” from Science of the Total Environment: Continue reading Plagiarism flushes sanitation paper