Pro-tip: If you’re going to try to publish the same paper twice, don’t submit the duplicated version to a journal from the same publisher where you published the original — especially if you plan to monkey with the data.
Well, don’t try to publish the same paper twice, nor monkey with data, period. But you’ll see our point, we hope, when you read this tale.
Continue reading Publisher retracts paper when authors try publishing it again in another of its journals
A pain journal has expressed concern over a 2018 paper by a group of researchers in China after a reader alerted the publication to problems with the article, including previously-reported data and a bogus trial registry record.
The article, “Population pharmacokinetic modeling of flurbiprofen, the active metabolite of flurbiprofen axetil, in Chinese patients with postoperative pain,” appeared in the Journal of Pain Research, a title from Dove Medical Press. The authors are affiliated with several Peking University and Capital Medical University in Beijing.
Here’s the expression of concern:
Continue reading Journal flags paper on painkiller for misused trial registry record
There are various ways to respond to criticism of one’s work. There is the “well, that’s not pleasant news, but thank you, I’ll correct that straightaway” approach. There’s the “I guess we’ll correct this but hope no one notices” approach. There’s the “I’m suing you” approach — often followed by “never mind.”
And then there’s the approach taken by Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Fredrickson is perhaps best known for her work on the “positivity ratio,” around which she has built a significant brand. The idea, in a nutshell, is that you’ll be more successful if you have three positive emotions for every negative one. It is a compelling and bite-sized idea, and has been turned into a book.
Continue reading “I decline to respond” but “take this history to undermine”
A researcher at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia will soon add three more retractions to his burgeoning count, making 30.
Ali Nazari has lost 27 papers from several journals, as we’ve reported over the past few months. According to an upcoming notice obtained by Retraction Watch, the International Journal of Material Research (IJMR) will be retracting three more:
Continue reading Materials scientist will soon be up to 30 retractions
We have a tension about resolving inaccuracies in scientific documents when they’re past a certain age.
Specifically, what should we do with old papers that are shown to be not just wrong, which is a fate that will befall most of them, but seriously misleading, fatally flawed, or overwhelmingly likely to be fabricated, i.e. when they reach the (very high) threshold we set for retraction?
To my way of thinking, there are three components of this:
Continue reading “Do we have the will to do anything about it?” James Heathers reflects on the Eysenck case
More than two dozen papers by a controversial psychologist who died in 1997 are “unsafe,” according to a recent report by his former employer obtained by Retraction Watch.
The research has been subject to question for decades, because the findings — including some that “bibliotherapy” could dramatically reduce the risk of dying from cancer — seemed unbelievable.
The report by King’s College London into the work of Hans Eysenck and Ronald Grossarth-Maticek notes that:
Continue reading University finds dozens of papers by late — and controversial — psychologist Hans Eysenck “unsafe”
Before we present this week’s Weekend Reads, a question: Do you enjoy our weekly roundup? If so, we could really use your help. Would you consider a tax-deductible donation to support Weekend Reads, and our daily work? Thanks in advance.
The week at Retraction Watch featured a case of doing the right thing in autism research; two more retractions for a formerly high-profile Harvard stem cell researcher; and the retraction of a paper claiming that a religious upbringing is linked to less generosity. Here’s what was happening elsewhere:
Continue reading Weekend reads: The need for more honesty in science; a fight between authors of a GM mosquito paper; faked academic CVs
Over at Psychology Today, Tyler VanderWeele reports on the case of a paper that earned significant headlines — and has now been retracted:
In 2015, a paper by Jean Decety and co-authors reported that children who were brought up religiously were less generous. The paper received a great deal of attention, and was covered by over 80 media outlets including The Economist, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and Scientific American. As it turned out, however, the paper by Decety was wrong.
VanderWeele notes that Azim Shariff, of the University of California, Irvine, asked Decety for the data, and
Continue reading Authors retract paper claiming religious upbringing is linked to less generosity
Piero Anversa, a former star researcher at Harvard Medical School who left the institution under a cloud, is up to 18 retractions. But that’s barely half of the 31 papers by Anversa’s group that Harvard has requested journals pull over concerns about the integrity of the findings.
The two articles, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, appeared in 2008 and 2009. Anversa and a frequent co-author, Annarosa Leri, are among the authors on each.
Anversa ran a richly-funded lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital studying cardiac stem cells. But in 2014, critics began publicly questioning the output from the lab — questions that led to the departure of Anversa and Leri and a $10 million payout from the Brigham and Partners Healthcare to settle allegations of fraud involving the work. Anversa and Leri also sued Harvard — unsuccessfully — for alerting journals to the investigation and allegedly costing them job offers.
The retraction notice for the 2008 paper, “Notch1 regulates the fate of cardiac progenitor cells,” reads:
Continue reading Drip, drip: Former Harvard stem cell researcher up to 18 retractions
An influential group that studies the economic burden of medical care has temporarily removed from its website a draft report about the cost-effectiveness of drugs to treat rheumatoid arthritis amid questions about the modeling researchers used in their analysis.
The group initially did little to explain the move, despite having issued a press release for the document last week, replacing the report’s page with a brief statement:
Continue reading Health care group withdraws rheumatoid arthritis drug report