Search Results for: fraud

‘Anyone can do this’: Sleuths publish a toolkit for post-publication review

For years, sleuths – whose names our readers are likely familiar with – have been diligently flagging issues with the scientific literature. More than a dozen of these specialists have teamed up to create a set of guides to teach others their trade. The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG) aims to make “post-publication … Continue reading ‘Anyone can do this’: Sleuths publish a toolkit for post-publication review

Guest post: NIH-funded replication studies are not the answer to the reproducibility crisis in pre-clinical research

President Trump recently issued an executive order calling for improvement in the reproducibility of scientific research and asking federal agencies to propose how they will make that happen. I imagine that the National Institutes of Health’s response will include replication studies, in which NIH would fund attempts to repeat published experiments from the ground up, … Continue reading Guest post: NIH-funded replication studies are not the answer to the reproducibility crisis in pre-clinical research

Weekend reads: MAHA report cites nonexistent studies; RFK Jr. threatens publishing access; can ‘zombie papers’ be killed?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 59,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: MAHA report cites nonexistent studies; RFK Jr. threatens publishing access; can ‘zombie papers’ be killed?

Paper on “wokeness” and mental health retracted for political reasons, authors say

The authors of an article linking scores on a “wokeness” scale and mental health issues are  blaming political bias for the retraction of their paper in March following post-publication peer review.  The article, “Do Conservatives Really Have an Advantage in Mental Health? An Examination of Measurement Invariance,” appeared in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology last … Continue reading Paper on “wokeness” and mental health retracted for political reasons, authors say

IQ study retracted in fallout from decades-old misconduct report

The authors of a paper on how motivation influences  intelligence test scores have retracted their paper following the retraction of a 50-year-old study included in their analysis.  Part meta-analysis and part longitudinal study, “Role of test motivation in intelligence testing” appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011. The meta-analysis portion included … Continue reading IQ study retracted in fallout from decades-old misconduct report

Weekend reads: French agency’s research director sanctioned; AI data woes at MIT; is disruptive science over?

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 59,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: French agency’s research director sanctioned; AI data woes at MIT; is disruptive science over?

Scopus indexed a journal with a fake editorial board and a sham archive

Editor’s note: We asked Elsevier to respond to some of the findings in this post. In response, a spokesperson told us they will now remove the journal from Scopus. See Elsevier’s response in this story. I received a letter recently pointing me to a questionable journal indexed in Elsevier’s Scopus database. Scopus indexes many problematic … Continue reading Scopus indexed a journal with a fake editorial board and a sham archive

Weekend reads: Majorana manipulation allegations; Norway’s most-published researcher committed misconduct; ‘second chance’ for convicted Harvard chemist

Our list of retracted or withdrawn COVID-19 papers is up past 500. There are more than 59,000 retractions in The Retraction Watch Database — which is now part of Crossref. The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now contains more than 300 titles. And have you seen our leaderboard of authors with the most retractions lately … Continue reading Weekend reads: Majorana manipulation allegations; Norway’s most-published researcher committed misconduct; ‘second chance’ for convicted Harvard chemist

‘Now is not the time to fade’: Retraction Watch awarded Council of Science Editors’ highest honor

Retraction Watch has been honored with the Council of Science Editors’ highest honor: The 2025 Award for Meritorious Achievement. CSE gives the award each year to an organization or individual who has made “significant contributions” toward the goal of CSE, “namely, the improvement of scientific communication through the pursuit of high standards in all activities … Continue reading ‘Now is not the time to fade’: Retraction Watch awarded Council of Science Editors’ highest honor

A ‘stupid mistake’: EPA researcher added their underage child as an author on manuscript 

A researcher at the Environmental Protection Agency added their underage child as a coauthor on a paper after the manuscript cleared the agency’s internal review, an investigation found.  The revelation, which calls into question the EPA’s process for reviewing papers, was among several highlighted by the agency’s Office of Inspector General in an April 8 … Continue reading A ‘stupid mistake’: EPA researcher added their underage child as an author on manuscript