Note to computer scientists: a publication is not a reconfigurable logic device. The Journal of Circuits, Systems and Computers has retracted a 2010 article by a pair of Iranian researchers who put the paper together using previously published work that, simply put, they reconfigured for their own purposes. The article, “Autonomous Group Testing Based Fault … Continue reading Computer science paper retracted for plagiarism
A group of ecologists in Germany who published a paper on the potential impact of global warming on ants in the Harz Mountains — northern Germany’s highest range — have retracted the paper after becoming, well, a bit antsy about the validity of their findings. The article, “Diversity of ants across an altitudinal gradient in … Continue reading Ants in the past: Journal pulls insect-global warming paper after questions arise over results
Here’s one for the way-back machine. The Annual Review of Sex Research (which is a supplement to the Journal of Sex Research) has retracted a 1992 paper by a group of researchers who lifted much of their analysis from two even older articles by another scholar. At 21 years post-publication, this is one of the … Continue reading 21-year-old article on the sex lives of women with cancer retracted for data misuse
We’ve heard a lot of rationalizations for plagiarism on this beat — “I didn’t know I had to cite that text”; “That author said it better than I ever could”; etc. — but here’s a new one for the wall of shame. Chemistry – A European Journal is retracting a 2012 article, “A New Indicator … Continue reading Plagiarism: It’s just an “approach” to writing papers, right?
A public health journal has retracted a 2010 paper by a CDC AIDS researcher in Uganda who appears to have lifted much of the work from a Canadian scientist. The article, “Determinants of project success among HIV/AIDS NGOs in Rakai, Uganda,” appeared in the International Journal of Health Planning and Management, a Wiley title. The … Continue reading Paper on anti-HIV efforts in Uganda pulled for plagiarism
Last year, Stephan Lewandowsky and colleagues posted a paper, scheduled for an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, with a, shall we say, provocative title: NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science In an interview last year with Lewandowsky, NPR gathered some of the reactions … Continue reading Why publishers should explain why papers disappear: The complicated Lewandowsky study saga
Andrew Gelman, a statistician at Columbia University and a friend of the blog, has corrected a 2008 paper in the blunt way you’d expect him to. Here’s the notice in the Annals of Applied Statistics: In the paper, “Should the Democrats move to the left on economic policy?” AOAS 2 (2), 536-549 (2008), by Andrew … Continue reading “[A]ll of Section 3 is wrong until proven otherwise”: Correction of paper on Democrats’ economic policy
What happens when people who study management have to write a retraction notice? This, from Management Learning, regarding a paper by Gordon Müller-Seitz of the Free University of Berlin, suggests one possibility:
The authors of a paper in Nature Photonics have been forced to walk back their article after learning from another group of researchers that their conclusions likely were an, ahem, optical illusion. The paper, “Greatly enhanced continuous-wave terahertz emission by nano-electrodes in a photoconductive photomixer,” appeared in January 2012 and came from a team led … Continue reading Findings of “greatly enhanced” optics turn out to be, well, greatly enhanced
On Tuesday, we reported on the case of Adam Savine, a former graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis who was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to have committed misconduct. Today, Blythe Bernhard, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has an illuminating Q and A with Todd Braver, whose lab Savine worked … Continue reading Wash U psychologist sheds light on inquiry against former psychology grad student