We always like to get a historical perspective on how scientists have tried to correct the record, such as this attempt in 1756 to retract a published opinion about some of the work of Benjamin Franklin. Although that 18th century note used the word “retract,” it wasn’t a retraction like what we see today, in … Continue reading What did retractions look like in the 17th century?
This week at Retraction Watch featured a big new study of retractions, another that looked at scientist productivity over time, and a new statement on how to use p values properly. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
A paper on a hybrid algorithm turned out to be a hybrid itself — some original data, plus some from a paper that the authors had published earlier. According to the retraction note, the overlap was significant enough to pull it from the scientific record. The retracted paper describes an algorithm that is the combination of a “genetic … Continue reading Algorithm paper retracted for “significant overlap” with another
In 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 … Continue reading Poll: If authors don’t address mistakes, is that misconduct?
There’s a new paper about retractions, and it’s chock-full of the kind of data that we love to geek out on. Enjoy. The new paper, “A Multi-dimensional Investigation of the Effects of Publication Retraction on Scholarly Impact,” appears on the preprint server arXiv — meaning it has yet to be peer-reviewed — and is co-authored … Continue reading Ready to geek out on retraction data? Read this new preprint
Scientists have been abuzz over a report in last week’s Science questioning the results of a recent landmark effort to replicate 100 published studies in top psychology journals. The critique of this effort – which suggested the authors couldn’t replicate most of the research because they didn’t adhere closely enough to the original studies – … Continue reading Let’s not mischaracterize replication studies: authors
A promising early career researcher has been dismissed from her post at the National Center for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) in Spain, following “an alleged ongoing fraud,” according to El Pais. We don’t know what exactly the internal investigation into Susana González’s work found; El Pais relied on anonymous sources, and the CNIC confirmed only that they dismissed her on February 29th. … Continue reading Stem cell researcher in Spain dismissed following investigation
The week at Retraction Watch was dominated by the retraction of “the Creator” paper, but we also reported on a scientist under investigation losing a grant, and a case brewing at a New Jersey university. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Pernille Rørth is not your typical novelist. She was a scientist for 25 years and was also editor-in-chief of the EMBO Journal for five years. But now, she’s written a novel – Raw Data – about an incident of misconduct that forces a top lab in Boston to retract a prominent Nature paper. The novel … Continue reading When misconduct strikes: A fictional tale
The 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 … Continue reading Poll: Should “the Creator” paper have been retracted?