An epidemic of scientific fakery threatens to overwhelm publishers; The Washington Post, June 11, 2024

Adam Marcus

 and 

Ivan Oransky, The Washington Post

; An epidemic of scientific fakery threatens to overwhelm publishers

"A record number of retractions — more than 10,000 scientific papers in 2023. Nineteen academic journals shut down recently after being overrun by fake research from paper mills. A single researcher with more than 200 retractions.

The numbers don’t lie: Scientific publishing has a problem, and it’s getting worse. Vigilance against fraudulent or defective research has always been necessary, but in recent years the sheer amount of suspect material has threatened to overwhelm publishers.

We were not the first to write about scientific fraud and problems in academic publishing when we launched Retraction Watch in 2010 with the aim of covering the subject regularly."

Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech; Retraction Watch, October 8, 2018

Retraction Watch; Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech

 

[Kip Currier: Quick question: How do you know if the scientific papers you're reading, and perhaps relying upon, represent "good" science or have been discredited? Enter Retraction Watch.

While working on a Research Misconduct chapter for my ethics textbook, I was reminded of Retraction Watch from one of my Information Ethics course's lectures. Retraction Watch is a project of its parent organization, The Center for Scientific Integrity, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, supported by grants like the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The Mission of The Center for Scientific Integrity is "to promote transparency and integrity in science and scientific publishing, and to disseminate best practices and increase efficiency in science."

One of the Center's 4 goals is a freely accessible "database of retractions, expressions of concern and related publishing events, generated by the work of Retraction Watch."

Exploring some of the content areas on the Retraction Watch site, I was enticed to check out the so-called "Retraction Watch Leaderboard"--billed by Retraction Watch as their "unofficial list" ranking individuals by the number of papers that have been retracted. Not a list one wants to make! An interesting gender-based observation by Retraction Watch, which bears further study and elucidation:

"We note that all of the top 30 are men, which agrees with the general findings of a 2013 paper suggesting that men are more likely to have papers retracted for fraud."

Another good-to-know-about section of Retraction Watch is its "Top 10 Most Highly Cited Retracted Papers"...Here's looking at you, Andrew Wakefield--still "in the house", presently at #2, for your 1998 invalidated autism/vaccines paper co-authored with 12 other researchers (!), not retracted until 12 years later in 2010 (!), and, as of October 9, 2018, cited 499 times after retraction (!):

"Ever curious which retracted papers have been most cited by other scientists? Below, we present the list of the 10 most highly cited retractions. Readers will see some familiar entries, such as the infamous Lancet paper by Andrew Wakefield that originally suggested a link between autism and childhood vaccines. You’ll note that many papers — including the #1 most cited paper — received more citations after they were retracted, which research has shown is an ongoing problem."

Retraction Watch also reports examples of plagiarism, as evinced by this October 8, 2018 story about the incoming World Medical Association (WMA) President, Leonid Eidelman, delivering a speech that was, allegedly, a "mashup" of remarks from the 2014 past WMA President's speech to the WMA, an MIT press release, and a telemedicine company's website. Quite a patchwork quilt of "creative" unattributed sourcing. Canadian Medical Association leaves international group after president plagiarizes past president’s speech."]