We haven’t covered that many retractions in economics, and a 2012 paper found very few such retractions. Now, a new study based on a survey of economists tries to get a handle on how often economists commit scientific misconduct. Here’s the abstract of “Scientific misbehavior in economics,” which appeared in Research Policy:
A U.K. urban planner and self-styled expert on “truth and lying” has launched a forceful attack on the ethics of a key trade association, accusing it of refusing to promote his work for fear that the findings might be damaging to the profession. And what, you’re asking, does this have to do with retractions? Trust … Continue reading Mean streets: Expert on lying accuses planning association of ethical lapses
Sometimes, retraction notices offer tantalizing clues, but no real information. Take the case of a paper called “Florid osseous dysplasia,” which was published last year in Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology by a group at Mumbai’s Nair Hospital Dental College and retracted recently. Here’s the notice, which is suggestive but doesn’t say much:
Readers of three science publications may be wondering, “Where in the world were the editors?” after retractions appeared recently in the journals sounding the same theme: The articles in question had too much “overlap” between previous publications. For example, the Journal of Fish Biology notice reads, in part: “The retraction has been agreed due to … Continue reading Department of Redundancy Department: From fish to toxicology, where have all the editors gone?
Harold “Skip” Garner has worn many hats over the course of his career, including plasma physicist, biologist, and administrator. One of his interests is plagiarism and duplication the scientific literature, and he and colleagues developed a tool called eTBLAST that compares text passages to what has already been published to flag potential overlap. A new … Continue reading ‘Conference organizers have ignored this:’ How common is plagiarism and duplication in abstracts?
By now, most of our readers are aware that some fields of science have a reproducibility problem. Part of the problem, some argue, is the publishing community’s bias toward dramatic findings — namely, studies that show something has an effect on something else are more likely to be published than studies that don’t. Many have … Continue reading What leads to bias in the scientific literature? New study tries to answer
The journal Food Microbiology has pulled a 2012 paper on pork processing which, as we reported earlier, contained salami-sliced data. The article, “Bayesian inference for quantifying Listeria monocytogenes prevalence and concentration in minced pork meat from presence/absence microbiological testing,” came from a group at the Department of Food Science and Technology at the Agricultural University … Continue reading Unkosher reuse of data forces retraction of minced pork paper
Another busy week at Retraction Watch. Here’s a taste of scientific publishing news from elsewhere:
Last December, we reported on a Journal of Immunology paper that was retracted after a Cardiff University investigation found the senior author had inappropriately manipulated images. The inquiry found that there had been “no intention to mislead and subsequent repeats of the original experiments have shown that the paper’s conclusions remain sound,” the university told … Continue reading Cardiff University looking into allegations of misconduct by group headed by its dean of medicine