The Dutch media are reporting that Diederik Stapel, the Tilburg University social psychologist who fabricated data in dozens of studies, is facing a criminal probe for his misuse of some 2.2 million euros (roughly $2.8 million U.S.) in government grant funding. A Retraction Watch commenter tipped us off this morning that the newspaper NRC Handelsblad … Continue reading Diederik Stapel faces criminal inquiry for misuse of funds
A new study out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today finds that two-thirds of retractions are because of some form of misconduct — a figure that’s higher than previously thought, thanks to unhelpful retraction notices that cause us to beat our heads against the wall here at Retraction Watch. The … Continue reading Majority of retractions are due to misconduct: Study confirms opaque notices distort the scientific record
We couldn’t help noticing that the past few weeks have seen calls to retract two papers on food, from different sides of the political spectrum. One paper actually looked at the effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), while the GMO link in the other paper seems mostly to be in activists’ minds. Consider: On the … Continue reading Left and right apparently agree that “GMO” studies should be retracted (but they’re talking about different papers)
One of the issues that comes up again and again on Retraction Watch is when it’s appropriate to retract a paper. There are varying opinions. Some commenters have suggested, given the stigma attached, retraction should be reserved for fraud, while many more say error — even unintentional — is enough to merit withdrawal. Some others, … Continue reading “If a paper’s major conclusions are shown to be wrong we will retract the paper”: PLoS
It’s tempting to start calling this a trend. Three Elsevier math journals are among the latest scientific publications to be retracting papers because fake email addresses were used to obtain favorable peer reviews. The three papers appear in two journals: “On two subclasses of (α,β)-metrics being projectively related,” in the Journal of Geometry and Physics; … Continue reading Iranian mathematicians latest to have papers retracted for fake email addresses to get better reviews
There have been a number of thoughtful stories and opinion pieces on scientific fraud recently. There was Brian Deer in the Sunday Times of London last month. Paul Jump, at the Times Higher Education, later that month looked at the lessons of one particular case. Alok Jha, of the Guardian, took on the issue last … Continue reading Does focusing on wrongdoing in research feed mistrust of science?
We’ve found another retraction for a paper bySangiliyandi Gurunathan, the former researcher at Kalasalingam University in India fired over multiple instances of data fabrication that also caused six Ph.D. students to get kicked out of their program. The retraction was published In Vitro Cellular & Developmental Biology – Animal in October 2011 but we only … Continue reading Fired Kalasalingam prof Gurunathan’s retraction count stands at eight
The case of Hyung-In Moon — the researcher who faked email addresses for potential peer reviewers so he could do his own peer review — has already led to one resignation. Emilio Jirillo, the editor of Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, which retracted 20 of Moon’s papers, stepped down earlier this year in the wake of the … Continue reading Journal editor resigned in wake of retractions for fake email addresses that enabled self-peer review
In an unusual move, a German university has issued a statement calling into question “the scientific honesty” of a whistleblower, and suggesting that his emails were “dangerous.” Some background: Off and on here at Retraction Watch, we have been following a complicated case involving Robert Nitsch, a scientist at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University. In August of last … Continue reading German university calls whistleblower’s emails “dangerous”
The Journal of Experimental Medicine has issued a correction for a 2011 paper by Michael Karin, a prominent cancer researcher at the University of California, San Diego, after learning about a “clerical error” in one of the figures. According to the notice for the article, “Constitutive intestinal NF-κB does not trigger destructive inflammation unless accompanied … Continue reading Authors, including highly cited cancer researcher, blame “clerical error” for image mixup in paper