A Michigan judge has ruled against a motion by PubPeer to protect the identity of an anonymous commenter, and asked the post-publication peer review site to give her any information they have about the commenter. According to one of the lawyers present, the site said in court the only identifying information it has is an … Continue reading Judge tells PubPeer to hand over information about anonymous commenter; site weighing “options”
We’re pleased to introduce readers to Alice Dreger, a historian of science and medicine at the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program in Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Her new book is “Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and the Search for Justice in Science,” out this week from Penguin Press. Read to the end for … Continue reading Yes, we are seeing more attacks on academic freedom: guest post by historian of science and medicine
Research director Alison Abritis earned her Ph.D. in Public Health, with a concentration in toxicology and risk assessment. Her dissertation focused on retractions and corrections, or the lack thereof, arising from misconduct findings by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI). She found that less than half of the findings resulted in a published retraction or correction, and even … Continue reading Meet the Retraction Watch staff
The week at Retraction Watch featured a number of legal cases by scientists trying to suppress criticism about their work. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
PubPeer won a near-complete victory in a Michigan court today. A judge has agreed to allow the site to protect the identities of all but one of its anonymous commenters, after a cancer researcher demanded the site release the names of those who have critiqued his papers. For one of the comments on the site, … Continue reading Judge rules most of PubPeer’s commenters can remain anonymous
Marc Hauser. Dirk Smeesters. Diederik Stapel. Psychology has been home to some of the most infamous cases of fraud in recent years, and while it’s just a few bad apples who are spoiling the bunch, the field itself has seen an overall increase in retractions, according to a new paper by Jürgen Margraf appearing in Psychologische Rundschau and titled “Zur … Continue reading Psychology retractions have quadrupled since 1989: study
This week at Retraction Watch featured a change of heart by a journal, and a look at Nature’s addition of double-blind peer review. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
There are a number of fields that seem to punch above their weight on Retraction Watch: Anesthesiology, home to the world record holder (and runner-up), and psychology, home to Diederik Stapel and others. But the red-hot field of stem cell research is another that makes frequent appearances, last year’s STAP controversy being particularly prominent. There’s … Continue reading Are retractions more frequent in stem cell research?
The authors of a 2011 Science paper that proposed a new way to direct chemical bonds have withdrawn the paper after concerns about the data prompted an investigation and Editorial Expression of Concern last year from the journal. The retraction is the second for the group, which has also had seven other expressions of concern. After … Continue reading Science chemistry paper earns retraction after expression of concern, marking second for UT group
Lawyers one, scientists nil. Danish judges have overruled scientists in that nation, concluding that a panel of experts erred in finding that physiologist Bente Klarlund Pedersen, of the University of Copenhagen, was guilty of misconduct. Last September, Pedersen announced that she would fight the ruling of the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD, Danish acronym … Continue reading Danish high court clears Pedersen in misconduct case