Feb 20, 2018 08:33 PM
The Data Thugs
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6377/730.full
EXCERPT: When it comes to correcting problematic data in the scientific literature, styles vary. Some scientists prefer to go through "proper channels," such as private conversations or letters to the editor. Others leave anonymous comments on online forums, such as PubPeer, for airing concerns about papers. Then there is the more public approach taken by Nick Brown and James Heathers. The two researchers—Heathers has called himself "a data thug"—have been remarkably effective at uncovering problematic data—and publicly airing their concerns on websites and in the media. Their work has led to corrections to dozens of papers, and the full retractions of about 20. But although the duo concedes that their assertive style might rub some scientists the wrong way, they've attracted relatively little criticism from academic peers. Indeed, many credit them with addressing an uncomfortable problem in the science world, and even send them tips on suspect papers....
MORE: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6377/730.full
‘Still working’: Astronomers explain why they don’t publish
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/s...-t-publish
EXCERPT: . . . So Ferdinando Patat, an astronomer at ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany, says he was “quite astonished” when an earlier study on the scientific return of ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile showed that up to 50% of teams awarded time never published a peer-reviewed report based on their observations.
Patat wanted to understand why. He and a few ESO scientists scoured publication databases and identified 1278 projects that were awarded time [...] but which had not published anything by April 2016. They sent the project teams a questionnaire [...] They got a surprisingly high number of responses—80%—and the most common one was, perhaps unsurprisingly, “I am still working on the data.” [...] Beyond that, there was no clear winner in the excuse stakes...
MORE: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/s...-t-publish
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6377/730.full
EXCERPT: When it comes to correcting problematic data in the scientific literature, styles vary. Some scientists prefer to go through "proper channels," such as private conversations or letters to the editor. Others leave anonymous comments on online forums, such as PubPeer, for airing concerns about papers. Then there is the more public approach taken by Nick Brown and James Heathers. The two researchers—Heathers has called himself "a data thug"—have been remarkably effective at uncovering problematic data—and publicly airing their concerns on websites and in the media. Their work has led to corrections to dozens of papers, and the full retractions of about 20. But although the duo concedes that their assertive style might rub some scientists the wrong way, they've attracted relatively little criticism from academic peers. Indeed, many credit them with addressing an uncomfortable problem in the science world, and even send them tips on suspect papers....
MORE: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6377/730.full
‘Still working’: Astronomers explain why they don’t publish
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/s...-t-publish
EXCERPT: . . . So Ferdinando Patat, an astronomer at ESO headquarters in Garching, Germany, says he was “quite astonished” when an earlier study on the scientific return of ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile showed that up to 50% of teams awarded time never published a peer-reviewed report based on their observations.
Patat wanted to understand why. He and a few ESO scientists scoured publication databases and identified 1278 projects that were awarded time [...] but which had not published anything by April 2016. They sent the project teams a questionnaire [...] They got a surprisingly high number of responses—80%—and the most common one was, perhaps unsurprisingly, “I am still working on the data.” [...] Beyond that, there was no clear winner in the excuse stakes...
MORE: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/s...-t-publish