Sexton: Similarly, the experts Singal contacted said the use of fake data still counts as data fabrication even if the dataset was obviously meant to be part of a satirical hoax. So there may be two grounds on which this IRB could decide to punish Boghossian.
Peer review
Social science hoaxer’s job at risk for revealing “bias”
Boghossian’s breach of ethics was that he was supposed to get the consent of the journal editors before hoaxing them because they are human subjects. No, really. That is the explanation.
Study: “Half-life” of scientists dramatically shorter over time
The need to get a citation—any old how—may help account for peer review scandals and the need to treat fossil concepts like Darwinism as if they were still alive (why risk any kind of dissent when attrition is so high?).
Kim Kardashian’s paper one of Top Ten Science Retractions of 2018
One can’t help thinking that in at least two cases, much more must be wrong than just individual misconduct.
Chinese researchers who stray could face “social penalties”
That might include not being able to get a loan, run a company, or apply for a job: The policy, announced last month, is an extension of the country’s controversial ‘social credit system’, where failure to comply with the rules of one government agency can mean facing restrictions or penalties from other agencies. The punishment […]
Paywall for science articles, yes or no?
Science funders are now getting into the act: Why should people have to pay to read science that has been funded?
Update 2: Springer has forwarded Jerry Coyne’s concern re creationist paper
Coyne, author of Why Evolution Is True, promises to “ rest assured—for the time being.”
A Springer journal has published a creationist paper
It’s a good question, though, if we end universalism in science (and that’s all the rage), why creationism in an anthropology and ethnology journal doesn’t follow.
Media are flabby from a diet of junk science
Should we believe them when they tell us that the drinking four cups of coffee daily lowers our risk of death people with spouses live longer? A statistician and a physician team up to explain why not: A subtler manifestation of dishonesty in research is what amounts to statistical cheating. Here is how it works… […]
Can AI help scientists formulate ideas?
Yes, if you mean “dumb AI,” and there ain’t no “smart AI”: Quantity is definitely a solved problem. STM, the “voice of scholarly publishing” estimated in 2015 that roughly 2.5 million science papers are published each year. Some are, admittedly, in predatory or fake journals. But over 2800 journals are assumed to be genuine. From […]
Two views on the new “Journal of Controversial Ideas”
Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed has the story: Academic freedom is meant to protect scholars with controversial ideas. But a group of philosophers says academic freedom isn’t protection enough in an era of campus speech debates, internet trolls and threats against professors — and that academics now need a place to publish their most […]
Half of social science replication studies failed under near-ideal conditions
It’s becoming harder to ignore the stench: The drive recruited labs around the world to try to replicate the results of 28 classic and contemporary psychology experiments. Only half were reproduced successfully using a strict threshold for significance that was set at P < 0.0001 (the P value is a common test for judging the […]
Stress: Scientist to be sentenced for trying to poison labmate
We run this story as a public service. Sometimes the pressure might get to you but it is almost never entirely that person’s fault and this is not the way to go about dealing with it: Graduate student Zijie Wang has pleaded guilty to poisoning a co-worker in the chemistry labs at Queen’s University in […]
Surprise: Science thrives when people can admit they didn’t prove something
For decades, researchers have complained that one of the problems that compromises research today is null findings – that is, if you don’t prove your point, you’re a failure, so you bury it (the file drawer problem). But that attitude shows poor collective reasoning skills. Showing which answers are wrong is, logically, a step on […]
What can a huge retractions database teach us?
A tenfold increase in retractions around the turn of the millennium prompted action and study, including the project by Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, founders of Retraction Watch, to list and study retractions. Overall, improved vigilance has slowed the trend, but key problems remain, including: A disturbingly large portion of papers—about 2%—contain “problematic” scientific images […]