A journal is reviewing a paper about trends in rape at U.S. colleges after the author realized a mistake. Although the journal Violence and Gender hasn’t issued any editorial notice about the paper, Inside Higher Ed published a correction July 14 to its original news story about the topic. “Dangerous Colleges: Associations Between School-Level Factors and the Risk … Continue reading Journal taking second look at paper on campus rape
Remember last week, when JAMA replaced an article about the impact of moving homes on kids’ mental health after discovering some errors in the analysis? We’re going to see more of these somewhat unusual notices coming out of JAMA journals in the near future – the JAMA Network journals may issue more “retract and replace” … Continue reading Retract – and replace? JAMA may expand use of this tool
A graduate student at the University of Oregon in Eugene has admitted to faking data that appeared in four published papers in the field of visual working memory, according to the Office of Research Integrity. David Anderson’s supervisor at the time was Edward Awh, who has since moved to the University of Chicago. Anderson told Retraction Watch … Continue reading Oregon grad student admits to faking data in four neuroscience papers
Genome Biology has partially retracted a high-profile paper about an epigenetic biomarker of aging – a year and a half after the author alerted the journal to a software coding error that invalidated one of its findings. The paper, “DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types,” garnered some media coverage and forms the basis … Continue reading High-profile aging paper posts old erratum, requested by author more than one year prior
Two researchers at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada have retracted a paper that came to fairly common-sense conclusions about bike safety. In the September 2014 issue of the Journal of Transport and Health, the authors concluded that slippery road surfaces, night-time biking, and higher speed limits were all associated with higher probabilities of a … Continue reading Stats mistake crashes bike accident paper
Perhaps what Garrison Keillor says about people is also true of scientific papers: Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. There’s been another retraction in social psychology, but before you lump it together with the field’s problem children — read: … Continue reading Paper on “better-than-average effect” retracted for being, well, worse than average
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
The authors of a study allegedly showing that antidepressants prevent suicide have retracted it over unspecified errors. Here’s the notice: At the request of the authors and in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief and Wiley-Blackwell, the following article “Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression”. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2010;122:454–460 has been retracted. The retraction has been requested … Continue reading Authors retract paper claiming antidepressants prevent suicide
Blaming “data coding errors,” the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health has pulled an article linking shift work, age and sleeping problems. The study was published four months ago, but managed in its brief lifespan to garner significant attention in the mainstream media and the blogosphere, although it has not been cited by any other … Continue reading Shifting gears: Occupational health journal pulls study linking shift work, age and sleep disorders
Happy 2026! We’re excited to bring you the first Weekend Reads of the new year. The week at Retraction Watch featured: In case you missed the news, the Hijacked Journal Checker now has more than 400 entries. The Retraction Watch Database has over 63,000 retractions. Our list of COVID-19 retractions is up over 460, and … Continue reading Weekend reads: Evaluating the benefits of open science, a misconduct investigation in Korea, and what we lose in outsourcing reviews to AI