When I began my graduate work almost 15 years ago, retractions of papers in academic journals were rare, reserved mainly for clear misconduct or serious errors. Today, rarity has given way to routine, with retractions coming more often and increasingly in bulk. Sage is not immune to large-scale retractions, nor are we passive observers of … Continue reading Guest post: A look behind the scenes of bulk retractions from Sage
We are pleased to present an excerpt from Thinking About Science: Good Science, Bad Science, and How to Make It Better by Ferric C. Fang and Arturo Casadevall, published by ASM Press/Wiley, October 2023. Amidst the COVID-19 calamity, one can argue that science is one of the few aspects of the human response that has … Continue reading Research integrity during the COVID-19 pandemic: A book excerpt
We are pleased to present an excerpt from Trust in Medical Research, a freely available new book by Warwick P. Anderson, emeritus professor of physiology and biomedical sciences at Monash University in Victoria, Australia. It has always been difficult for me to admit that we have a genuine and substantial problem of fraud and rubbish … Continue reading To guard against fraud, medical research should be a profession: A book excerpt
Today is a very big day for Retraction Watch and The Center For Scientific Integrity, our parent non-profit. Bear with me while I explain, starting with some history. When Adam Marcus and I launched Retraction Watch in 2010, we envisioned it as a journalism blog that would break stories no one else was covering, and … Continue reading The Retraction Watch Database becomes completely open – and RW becomes far more sustainable
One of the world’s foremost conservation biologists is being accused of plagiarism and bullying by a former PhD student, Retraction Watch has learned. The biologist, Stuart Pimm of Duke University, strongly denies the charges, but he and his colleagues have acknowledged the existence of “closely related” work following an internal investigation by Duke. The … Continue reading Exclusive: World-renowned biologist accused of bullying student, stealing his work
Florida State University last week terminated a criminology professor accused of research misconduct, Retraction Watch has learned, capping a years-long, highly publicized saga the school says has caused almost “catastrophic” damage to its standing. In a termination letter obtained by Retraction Watch, the university accused the former professor, Eric A. Stewart, of “extreme negligence and … Continue reading Florida university fires criminology professor blemished by retractions
An engineering journal has retracted an article that was posted on a website claiming to sell author positions. The retraction comes nearly two years after we reported on the website and a whistleblower informed the journal. The study, “On the dynamics of an ultra-fast-rotating-induced piezoelectric cantilevered nanodisk surrounded by viscoelastic foundation,” appeared in Mechanics Based … Continue reading Paper with authorship posted for sale retracted nearly two years after Retraction Watch report
In 2017, a paper published in Nature Human Behavior made international headlines for the authors’ claim they had developed a way to analyze brain scans using machine learning to identify youth at risk for suicide. “It was a big, splashy finding,” said Timothy Verstynen, an associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, … Continue reading High-profile paper that used AI to identify suicide risk from brain scans retracted for flawed methods
It was déjà vu last month when a university in Belgium stripped Egyptian physician Hatem Abu Hashim of his doctorate after he was found to have fabricated data in his thesis. Just weeks earlier, another Egyptian doctor, Ahmed Badawy, lost the PhD degree he had earned at a Dutch university in 2008. Abu Hashim and … Continue reading Ob-gyn loses PhD after committee finds he made up research
Two journals have dismissed allegations of research misconduct leveled against a political scientist at Harvard in an anonymous memo that labeled his work “pseudoscience.” The 2018 memo signed by “Social Scientists for Research Integrity” – which does not have an internet presence that we could find – makes claims of academic misconduct against Ryan Enos, … Continue reading Journals dismiss claims that Harvard researcher’s work on race is ‘pseudoscience’