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Top 5 Retracted Science Studies of 2016
Publish or perish : That ’s the mantra among academics . The pressure on researchers to release Modern field , however , may have turned this saying into " publishandperish , " as more than 650 scientific papers were retract in 2016 , jeopardizing the wholeness of scientist , and threatening the populace ’s cartel in their work .
Misconduct answer for for the majority of abjure scientific publications , according to a field publish in 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences entitle , well , " wrongful conduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications . " The writer sure did n’t moderate words . They found that only about 20 percentage of retractions were due to honest error , whereas nigh 70 percent were due toscientific misconduct , including fraud or suspected fraud , a denary growth since 1975 .
And those fraudulence - related retractions were more likely to be in the most prominent journals , the study found , suggesting that the pressure to print in so - called high - encroachment journal is tempt some scientist to cheat .
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So , it ’s sentence now for our annual countdown of the more interesting diary article retraction of 2016 , culled fromRetraction Watch , a blog that has been report on scientific recantation since 2010 .
5. The man who coughed pee
It was one from the annals of music : A 24 - twelvemonth - sure-enough man from the East Indies died after coughing up a liter of something that looked and smelled a lot like water . The 1923 case report in the Dutch Journal of Medicine ( Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde ) stated that the man , inexplicably , had a kidney located in his bureau cavity . He had become to the hospital and was diagnose withpneumonia . The pneumonia then do an abscess that ruptured the errant kidney , make it to leak out urine into the membrane hem in the lung .
But alas , such a affected role never survive . lancinate on the fact that kidneys do n’t domiciliate in chest caries , the modern editors of the Dutch Journal of Medicine decide to enquire the event study ’s legitimacy as they were cook it for digital accessibility . After much dig into , they found that the case cogitation was a hoax pull by some naughtymedical studentshaving fun after studying for a medical test . The story was revealed in the autobiography of one of the aesculapian students , named Arie Querido , who died in 1983 .
Querido write that he and his fellow student were just goofing off , create notional diseases . The " kidney in the chest enclosed space " concept took off , and they were so amused with themselves that they decide to submit the pillowcase study for publication . They never thought it would be published , Querido wrote . But it was . And now it has been retracted .
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4. Can’t say he’s not passionate about recycling
With data this trade good , it seems a compassion not to apply them over and over and over again . regrettably for Shyi - Min Lu , arenewable - energyresearcher from Taiwan , he got caught republish the same research . This is different from self - plagiarism . When scientist submit a paper for publication , they must adjudge that the paper is n’t under consideration for publication elsewhere and that any reuse of data must be cited explicitly . Lu failed to do so and submitted " recycled " papers about , ironically enough , energy recycling to various journals , often without his co - source knowing .
Lu admitted to commit offenses in 10 document , including reusing digit and plagiarizing others ' body of work , according to Retraction Watch . Several of these papers have been retracted . Lu has since been fired from National Taiwan University , where he was a research help .
3. Maybe they should have cited Genesis
The editor in chief of the respected journal PLOS ONE got an earful from their readers after publishing a newspaper publisher about deal coordination that made several references to " the Godhead . " For lesson , in the paper ’s synopsis , the researchers wrote , " The biomechanical feature of tendinous connective computer architecture between muscle and articulations is the proper designing by the Creator to do a multitude of everyday tasks in a comfortable way . " And , in the body of the newspaper , they compose , " deal coordination should point the mystery of the Creator ’s design . "
thinking pattern creeping into peer revue ? Or , was it a spoiled translation ? ( Three of the paper ’s four authors were affiliated with enquiry institutions inChina . ) One of the authors , Cai - Hua Xiong , whose aboriginal tongue is not English , claimed that he did n’t understand the signification of the word " Godhead " and had something more like " Nature " in head . PLOS ONE editors retracted the paper nevertheless , drop a line that their rating let on " business organisation with the scientific principle , presentation and language , which were not adequately addressed during equal review . "
2. Hey, thanks for the paper. Can I publish it?
In the process ofpeer review article , scientist A submits an article to a journal , and the daybook send it to scientist B , C , and 500 to retrospect it for scientific merit . Well , scientist B apparently was so impressed with one submission that she make up one’s mind to release it herself .
It all lead off in 2012 when a group of Indian researchers submit an clause to the International Journal of Pediatric Dentistry about remineralization of white spots . It was rejected . So it go . In 2013 , an whole dissimilar stage set of Indian researchers submit an clause to the Journal of Conservative Dentistry about … you reckon it … remineralization ofwhite spots . This was accepted , and was print in 2014 . It remove some sentence , but the editors at that first journal thought the publish article expect awfully conversant . Indeed , they claimed it was a " verbatim copy " of the refuse article .
And here ’s the kicker : The first author of the accepted article was a reader of the rejected article . After a thoroughgoing investigation , the Journal of Conservative Dentistry concluded the claims of wrongdoing were true and retracted that article . Hmm , I wonder if that first group or researchers could write it now ?
Runners Up: pot and fat, corrected
A.Place this one in the category of " what were they smoking ? " A widely reported news story about marijuana not being that harmful was based on erroneous interpretation of the data . The study was write in 2015 in the journal of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors . The play along public press release put forward : " Chronic marihuana useby teenage boy does not appear to be linked to later physical or mental wellness result such as clinical depression , psychotic symptoms , or asthma . " Well , news show newsperson inhale deeply on that one and reported it widely . But a reanalysis of the data — and perchance a conversation with a neighborhood lapidator — found that there was such a linkup between marijuana consumption and mental health problems . The study has since been right , but not draw back .
B.Place this one in the class of " What , bacon grease is n’t healthy ? " The British Medical Journal ( BMJ ) issue an article in 2015 by Nina Teicholz , writer of The Big Fat Surprise , a book about how saturated fats are n’t unhealthy . Teicholz ’s BMJ article questioned theU.S. dietary guideline . ( Hint : She did n’t like the " cut back on impregnate fat " part of the guidelines . ) As it turns out , match - reviewed diary article need to be a weeny routine more precise than popular - level diet book . More than 100 research worker requested that BMJ retract the clause , compose in a letter that the clause was " riddle with error " with " incorrect or biased interpretations of inquiry . " The research worker , from places such as Harvard , Yale , Stanford and Tufts , summarized 11 such error . The BMJ slump the majority of the errors but kibosh dead of retracting this piece , which to many of these researchers was a self-aggrandising fat surprisal .
1. Vaccines still don’t cause behavioral problems
It all begin back in 1998 when Andrew Wakefield published the now infamously fabricated cogitation in the journal Lancet linking vaccine to autism . That paper was in full retracted in 2010 . But you ca n’t keep a forged idea down for long .
sooner this year , researchers based in Israel published a discipline in the journal Vaccine that take to find a connection between the vaccinum for thehuman papillomavirus ( HPV)and behavioral government issue , in mouse . The paper was placed online in January in rise of print publication in an issue of the journal . The anti - vaccine crowd right away jumped on it as more cogent evidence of the dangers of vaccines . [ 5 grievous Vaccine myth ]
But the editor of Vaccine pull back the article within a month , say in the retraction placard that " the methodological analysis is seriously blemished , and the claim that the article makes are unjustified . " attain you wonder why they accept the paper in the first piazza ?
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Meanwhile , in November 2016 , the daybook Frontiers in Public Health provisionally take a paper linkingvaccines to autismand other neurological trouble . The field included online questionnaire to 415 mother of base - schooled tyke , a group that tends to have stiff ( minus ) feeling about vaccines . The journal has since remove the nonobjective from its site . The news program website Motherboard determined that the study was fund mostly by actress Jenny McCarthy ’s autism knowingness nonprofit , Generation Rescue , which has strong ( negative ) feelings about vaccine .
Although you’re able to no longer find these two studies , you’re able to still feel people commenting on them as if they are real . peradventure that ’s all that matters in a post - truth world .
‘The Creation of Adam’ is one of the nine ceiling panels in the Sistine Chapel depicting scenes from the book of Genesis.
