Retraction Watch – Web page 687 – Monitoring retractions as a window into the scientific course of

Post by Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus

The unfolding drama of Anil Potti — a Duke researcher who posed as a Rhodes Scholar and seems to have invented key statistical analyses in a examine of how breast most cancers responds to chemotherapy — has despatched ripples of angst via the most cancers group. Potti’s antics prompted editors of The Lancet Oncology to concern an “expression of concern” — a Britishism that could be higher expressed as “Holy Shit!” — concerning the validity of a 2007 paper of their journal by Potti and others.

Unlike newspapers, which attempt for celerity as a lot as accuracy, science journals have the luxurious of time. Thorough vetting, via editorial boards, peer reviewers and different filters, is the coin of the realm.

And but errors occur. Sometimes these slips are merely technical, requiring nothing greater than an erratum discover calling consideration to a backwards determine or an incorrect tackle for reprints. Less usually however way more essential are the instances when the blunders require that a whole article be pulled. For a glossary of the spectrum between erratum and retraction — together with expression of concern — see this piece, commissioned by considered one of us, Ivan, whereas he was at The Scientist.

Retractions are born of many moms. Fraud is probably the most titillating motive, and mercifully probably the most uncommon, however when it occurs the outcomes will be devastating. Consider the case of Scott Reuben, a prodigiously dishonest anesthesiologist whose fabrications led to the retraction of greater than a rating of papers and deeply rattled a whole medical specialty. (One of us, Adam, broke that story.)

So why write a weblog on retractions? Continue studying Why write a weblog about retractions?