Aug 8, 2022 07:54 PM
Retractions of faulty or fake research papers are increasing, but not enough
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02071-6
INTRO: When my colleague Adam Marcus, editorial director at Medscape, and I launched the blog Retraction Watch in 2010, we didn’t realize we were riding a wave. At the time, we thought journals were issuing about three retractions per month. But that hadn’t been true for a decade. In 2010, they were averaging about 45 a month. Last year saw nearly 300 a month. Our database of retractions, launched in 2018, is up to nearly 35,000 entries. The oldest of those — a recanted critique of Benjamin Franklin’s work in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society — dates back to 1756.
On its face, the increase in retractions is good: a sign that science is becoming more scrutinized and rigorous, and that scientific publishing is doing its job. But it’s not that simple: journals publish more papers than they did in 1756, or even 2016. A higher proportion is now being retracted, but we estimate — on the basis of evidence from surveys, studies and reports from sleuths — that one in 50 papers would meet at least one of the criteria for retraction from the Committee on Publication Ethics, a non-profit collective in Eastleigh, UK. These include “clear evidence that the findings are unreliable”, whether because of falsified data, plagiarism, faked peer review or just ‘major error’, which might involve contaminated cell lines or another non-fraudulent problem. Yet the rate of retraction is still under 0.1%.
Retraction Watch has seen the retraction process change dramatically over the past decade. We’ve come to feel that the community is falling short... (MORE - details)
Misinformation abounds because “trusted” sources promote untrustworthy information
https://bigthink.com/health/misinformati...d-sources/
KEY POINTS: We are warned by scientists and the media to avoid misinformation. Yet, some of the purveyors of that misinformation are scientists and the media. It is well-known within academia that "there is no [study] that is so dreadful that it cannot be published somewhere." A recent one claiming that vitamin B6 can treat depression serves as a case in point. As a society, we either hold everybody to the same epistemic standard of scientific accuracy, or we accept that “trusted sources” themselves can peddle misinformation and continue to get away with (and profit from) it.
INTRO: The world has a misinformation problem. “Inaccurate information spreads widely and at speed,” the World Health Organization warns, “making it more difficult for the public to identify verified facts and advice from trusted sources.”
But the problem isn’t just a dozen anti-vaccine activists who spread nonsense on social media or environmental activists who gin up popular opposition to GMOs and low-risk pesticides. To be sure, these fringe voices do confuse consumers and undermine scientific thinking, though they’re not the only culprits.
The uncomfortable truth is that academic scientists routinely publish questionable research that attracts widespread media attention, adding to the morass of “inaccurate information” circulating online. If we want to get this problem under control, we need our trusted sources to quit releasing untrustworthy information.
Every scientist knows that peer-reviewed journals are chock-full of low-quality studies. As one cancer researcher put it: “[T]he public and journalists — the consumers of information about health — need to be aware of something that researchers know well — there is no [study] that is so dreadful that it cannot be published somewhere.”
Much of this research amounts to little; it is never cited or even read by other scientists. However, some of this work, despite its deficiencies, generates inordinate amounts of interest from reporters and the public... (MORE - details)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02071-6
INTRO: When my colleague Adam Marcus, editorial director at Medscape, and I launched the blog Retraction Watch in 2010, we didn’t realize we were riding a wave. At the time, we thought journals were issuing about three retractions per month. But that hadn’t been true for a decade. In 2010, they were averaging about 45 a month. Last year saw nearly 300 a month. Our database of retractions, launched in 2018, is up to nearly 35,000 entries. The oldest of those — a recanted critique of Benjamin Franklin’s work in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society — dates back to 1756.
On its face, the increase in retractions is good: a sign that science is becoming more scrutinized and rigorous, and that scientific publishing is doing its job. But it’s not that simple: journals publish more papers than they did in 1756, or even 2016. A higher proportion is now being retracted, but we estimate — on the basis of evidence from surveys, studies and reports from sleuths — that one in 50 papers would meet at least one of the criteria for retraction from the Committee on Publication Ethics, a non-profit collective in Eastleigh, UK. These include “clear evidence that the findings are unreliable”, whether because of falsified data, plagiarism, faked peer review or just ‘major error’, which might involve contaminated cell lines or another non-fraudulent problem. Yet the rate of retraction is still under 0.1%.
Retraction Watch has seen the retraction process change dramatically over the past decade. We’ve come to feel that the community is falling short... (MORE - details)
Misinformation abounds because “trusted” sources promote untrustworthy information
https://bigthink.com/health/misinformati...d-sources/
KEY POINTS: We are warned by scientists and the media to avoid misinformation. Yet, some of the purveyors of that misinformation are scientists and the media. It is well-known within academia that "there is no [study] that is so dreadful that it cannot be published somewhere." A recent one claiming that vitamin B6 can treat depression serves as a case in point. As a society, we either hold everybody to the same epistemic standard of scientific accuracy, or we accept that “trusted sources” themselves can peddle misinformation and continue to get away with (and profit from) it.
INTRO: The world has a misinformation problem. “Inaccurate information spreads widely and at speed,” the World Health Organization warns, “making it more difficult for the public to identify verified facts and advice from trusted sources.”
But the problem isn’t just a dozen anti-vaccine activists who spread nonsense on social media or environmental activists who gin up popular opposition to GMOs and low-risk pesticides. To be sure, these fringe voices do confuse consumers and undermine scientific thinking, though they’re not the only culprits.
The uncomfortable truth is that academic scientists routinely publish questionable research that attracts widespread media attention, adding to the morass of “inaccurate information” circulating online. If we want to get this problem under control, we need our trusted sources to quit releasing untrustworthy information.
Every scientist knows that peer-reviewed journals are chock-full of low-quality studies. As one cancer researcher put it: “[T]he public and journalists — the consumers of information about health — need to be aware of something that researchers know well — there is no [study] that is so dreadful that it cannot be published somewhere.”
Much of this research amounts to little; it is never cited or even read by other scientists. However, some of this work, despite its deficiencies, generates inordinate amounts of interest from reporters and the public... (MORE - details)