Retraction Watch launches a searchable database
by Michael Cook | 28 Oct 2018 |
The blog Retraction Watch, supported by Science magazine, has launched a searchable database of 18,000 retractions since the 1970s. Retraction of a research paper is the scientific equivalent of the death penalty. While the figure of 18,000 seems enormous, it is a tiny percentage of the rapidly increasing scientific literature.
Some retractions are extremely troubling. A Japanese anaesthetist, Yoshitaka Fujii, holds the record for most papers retracted – 169. Lagging far behind is Joachim Boldt, author of 98 retracted papers, also in anaesthetics. Coming third is Diederik Stapel, a Dutch researcher in social psychology with 58 retracted papers. Boldt’s misconduct might have injured some patients. Stapel’s placed his whole sub-specialty under a cloud.
Retraction Watch drew some conclusions from its study of these papers:
“Although the absolute number of annual retractions has grown, the rate of increase has slowed.” The rate doubled between 2003 and 2009, but then levelled off. Only about four in 10,000 papers are ever retracted and the number of papers published doubled between 2003 and 2016.
“Much of the rise appears to reflect improved oversight at a growing number of journals.” Editors are more aware of fraud and plagiarism and even lowly-rated journals are becoming more vigilant.
“Relatively few authors are responsible for a disproportionate number of retractions.” There are 13,000 authors in the Retraction Watch database, and a mere 500 of these are responsible for one-fourth of the retractions.
“Nations with smaller scientific communities appear to have a bigger problem with retractions.” Developed nations have more facilities for handling research misconduct.
“A retraction does not always signal scientific misbehaviour.” It is important to stress that retraction often – about 40% of the time -- takes place because of error or inability to reproduce results. Ultimately, the purpose of a retraction is to correct the record, not to signal research misconduct.
The authors suggest that the word “retraction” carries such a burden of stigma that a change in terminology might be helpful.
One helpful reform, some commentators say, would be for journals to follow a standardized nomenclature that would give more details in retraction and correction notices. The notices should specify the nature of a paper's problems and who was responsible—the authors or the journal itself. Reserving the fraught term "retraction" for papers involving intentional misconduct and devising alternatives for other problems might also prompt more authors to step forward and flag their papers that contain errors, some experts posit.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
I don’t know whether it is due to reading too much science fiction or not reading enough, but I find it impossible to take the transhumanist movement seriously. Some of its ideas about self-definition have seeped into mainstream culture, like transgenderism. However, its vision of a future in which homo sapiens has evolved into Morlocks and Eloi (as H.G. Wells foresaw in The Time Machine) seems almost preposterous, at least to me.
Perhaps to allay fears that scepticism from people like me will eventually lead to injustice against the more advanced sort of people, American transhumanists have drafted a transhumanist Bill of Rights (see below). This guarantees “sentient entities” everything from universal health care and internet coverage to “self-consciousness in perpetuity”.
One thing that I can never quite grasp about the earnest predictions of transhumanists is whether they actually care whether their schemes are practical. Uploading one’s consciousness to the internet sounds super but the obstacles in its path are more like the Himalayas than parking lot speedbumps – apart from all the ethical issues. Anyhow, good luck to them!
Perhaps to allay fears that scepticism from people like me will eventually lead to injustice against the more advanced sort of people, American transhumanists have drafted a transhumanist Bill of Rights (see below). This guarantees “sentient entities” everything from universal health care and internet coverage to “self-consciousness in perpetuity”.
One thing that I can never quite grasp about the earnest predictions of transhumanists is whether they actually care whether their schemes are practical. Uploading one’s consciousness to the internet sounds super but the obstacles in its path are more like the Himalayas than parking lot speedbumps – apart from all the ethical issues. Anyhow, good luck to them!
 Michael Cook Editor BioEdge |  |  |  |
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