Why Scientific Papers Are Being Retracted

Image courtesy of Frederick Burr Opper, Public Domain




Joel Kontinen

Another year, another 1,433 (and counting) retractions. The tenth year of Retraction Watch’s existence included—as is often the case—a new record, some impressive numbers, and some bizarre stories.

It seems that fake news is on the rise now . And researchers did not take into account a dog sitting on the of editorial board of seven medical journals.

This is what has happened in 2019:

A pair of researchers in India was caught having stolen a paper during the review process and publishing it under their own names in a journal run by the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry. The 2017 article, which appeared in CrystalEngComm, was ostensibly written by Priyadarshi Roy Chowdhury and Krishna G. Bhattacharyya, of Gauhati University in Jalukbari. But according to the journal, the work had “striking similarities” to a manuscript by two other scientists submitted to the journal Dalton Transactions that one of the authors had reviewed. CrystalEngComm retracted the offending article.



Source:

-The Scientist (16 December).

Do Americans Believe in Conspiracy Beliefs?

Some people think this is a fake picture, Buzz Aldrig lading on the moon. Image courtesy of NASA.




Joel Kontinen

Some believes are are false. No matter what authority propagates them.

A few science stories are false, especially the ones dealing with Darwinian evolution.

Now, a lot of the news making rounds in the news is false. Especially the ones dealing with the climate and evolution. No one can fathom how inanimate rocks became people - that is what Darwinians believe all the time, or the magic that brought nan into being.

Source:

Vittert, Liberty. 2019. Are Conspiracy Beliefs on the Rise? Live Science. (20 September).

Sloppy Research

Image courtesy of Frederick Burr Opper, Public Domain.




Joel Kontinen

In 2017, journal publisher Springer retracted over 100 scientific papers, prompting Live Science to begin an article with the words:

”Lies, exaggerations, criminal acts, unbridled irony, alternative facts, … No, we're not talking about 2017 politics. This is the 2017 world of science.”

“This past year, hundreds of scientific papers were retracted from professional journals. In the majority of cases involving these retractions, the reason was an innocent, yet sloppy, error in the methodology of the experiment that the authors themselves caught. But for quite a few papers, the retractions reflected scientific misconduct and a not-so-innocent attempt to tweak the data — or make it up entirely.”

And Live Science didn’t mention the dog sitting on the editorial board of 7 journals.

Then there’s an episode in which a hoax Star Wars Paper on Midi-Chlorians was accepted by four journals .

Now, Philip Bell has an opinion piece in Nature: “A reproducibility effort has put high-profile journals under the spotlight by trying to replicate a slew of social-science results. In the work, published on 27 August in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers attempted to reproduce 21 social-science results reported in Science and Nature between 2010 and 2015 and were able to reproduce 62% of the findings. That’s about twice the rate achieved by an earlier effort that examined the psychology literature more generally, but the latest result still raises questions about two out of every five papers studied.”

Source:

Ball, Philip. High-profile journals put to reproducibility test. Nature Human Behaviour, (27 August).

Fake Science Papers in the News

Image courtesy of Frederick Burr Opper, Public Domain.




Joel Kontinen

In 2015, a group of Chinese scientists published a paper entitled “Nucleolin Promotes TGF-β Signaling Initiation via TGF-β Receptor I in Glioblastoma” in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience.

While it might sound like a genuine scientific paper, there is little genuine in it. 1) Its stated funding source was not the real funding source. 2) One of the co-authors admitted he had not taken part in the research or in writing the paper and didn’t even know about the study. 3) The senior author acknowledged that he had not taken part in the submission process and did not support its publication. 4) The journal’s editors suspected that the peer-review process was compromised,

The paper was retracted in June 2017. This year, the journal’s publisher Springer has retracted over 100 scientific papers, prompting Live Science to begin an article with the words:

“Lies, exaggerations, criminal acts, unbridled irony, alternative facts,
fake news … No, we're not talking about 2017 politics. This is the 2017 world of science.”

The article goes on to say:

“This past year, hundreds of scientific papers were retracted from professional journals. In the majority of cases involving these retractions, the reason was an innocent, yet sloppy, error in the methodology of the experiment that the authors themselves caught. But for quite a few papers, the retractions reflected scientific misconduct and a not-so-innocent attempt to tweak the data — or make it up entirely.”

And Live Science didn’t even mention the case of a dog sitting on the editorial board of 7 journals.

It seems that scientific misconduct thrives in the Darwinian community.

Quite often, big science gives rise to big lies.

Source:

Wanjek, Christopher. 2017. Lies, Mistakes & More: These Scientific Papers Got Nixed in 2017. Live Science (27 December).

Peer Review in Disgrace: 4 Journals Publish Hoax Star Wars Paper Featuring Midi-Chlorians

The real mitochondrion looks like this. Image courtesy of Kelvinsong, , Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Peer review does not automatically mean that a science paper is reliable. At least one bogus, computer generated paper was accepted for publication in a journal.

Then there was the episode of a dog sitting on the editorial board of 7 journals.

The latest addition to this trend features a hoax Star Wars Paper on Midi-Chlorians accepted by four journals.

Obviously, the reviewers failed to distinguish between the supercomplex mitochondrion and the fictitious “and widely derided microscopic life-forms that give Jedi warriors their ability to use the Force in the ‘Star Wars’ movies,” as Live Science puts it.

It seems that it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, real news and fake news, as the recent fake news about the Canaanites reminds us.

Source:

Pappas, Stephanie. 2017. Mitochondria or Midi-Chlorians? 'Star Wars' Hoax Paper Published in 4 Journals. Live Science (25 July).

Easter: The Resurrected Christ Lives in Spite of Conspiracy Theories and Fake News

Image: El Greco (1580): Jesus Carrying the Cross, Public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Easter seems to be a difficult time for unbelievers. While Christians celebrate the passion of Jesus Christ that brings salvation for all who believe in Him, atheists and other sceptics try to explain why they are unwilling to accept the testimony of hundreds of reliable witnesses who saw the Lord Jesus alive after the resurrection.

They have invented several conspiracy theories as an excuse for not believing a historical fact.

The Apostle Paul says that Jesus is the Last Adam.

The first Adam brought death into the world by eating from a tree.

The Last Adam overcame death by dying on a tree.

Just in time for Easter, Graham Lawton asks whether atheism is a religion. While he would not agree with my conclusion, atheism requires faith. It relies on a speculative and ever-changing narrative of how we got here.

In contrast, the Bible is based on true history. Jesus’ empty tomb confirms that He is truly risen.

Have a blessed Easter time!

Source:

Lawton, Graham. 2017. Faith of the faithless: Is atheism just another religion? New Scientist (11 April).

Big Science, Big Lies, Scientific Fraud

It seems that Darwinian morality is having a bad effect on science.




Joel Kontinen

Big science has a big problem.

New Scientist has cultivated the phrase post-truth world quite a bit recently, especially before, during and after the recent US presidential elections.

It put the blame on politicians. However, it is now becoming increasingly obvious that scientists can’t afford to throw the first stone.

Time and again, they have had to warn of fake science stories and even outright fabrications.

Recently, Timothy Clark issued a dire warning in Nature. A senior research fellow at the University of Tasmania, he is worried about the spread of dishonesty in science:

The introduction sets the tone of the article:

“Too many researchers make up or massage their data, says Timothy D. Clark Only stringent demands for proof can stop them.”

Then he discloses some very alarming facts:

“Late last month, a US physicist began a jail sentence for scientific fraud. Darin Kinion took funds for research on quantum computing but did not carry out the work he claimed; instead, he invented the data that the research supposedly produced.”

And we have heard of several similar cases.

Clark goes on to say:

“Scientists like to think that such blatant dishonesty is rare, but I myself have witnessed several serious cases of scientific misconduct, from major data manipulation to outright fabrication. Most have gone unpunished — in fact, it has been disheartening to see the culprits lauded. It makes little sense for fraudsters to fabricate mediocre data. Their falsehoods generate outstanding stories, which result in high-profile publications and a disproportionately large chunk of the funding pie.

I have noticed a lesser-known motive for bad science in my field, experimental biology. As environmental change proceeds, there is great demand from the public and policy¬makers for simple stories that show the damage being done to wildlife. I occasionally meet scientists who argue that the questions we ask and the stories we tell are more important than the probity of our investigations: the end justifies the means, even if the means lead to data fabrication. That view is alarmingly misguided and has no place in science.”

The underlying problem is that scientists often have an agenda. This is at times glaringly obvious in the Darwinian community.

Researchers seek to find evidence for assumed transitional forms or missing links, for instance.

Remember Darwinius massillae, better known as Ida?

Or Eoanthropus dawsoni aka. Piltdown Man or perhaps even Nebraska Man?

Scientific misconduct thrives in the Darwinian community as evolution does not give objective grounds for morality.

Source:

Clark, Timothy D. 2017. Science, lies and video-taped experiments. Nature 542, 139. (7 February).

Beware of Fake Science News Stories!

Charles Darwin’s ideas might not be good for objective science reporting.




Joel Kontinen

Science publications have recently made a big issue of fake news and the post-truth world. They were very outspoken in whom they thought should be the better president in the recent US elections.

And it seems that they haven’t yet recovered from their big disappointment.

Writing on the website of American Council on Science and Health, Dr. Alex Berezow brings a touch of very welcome sanity into the matter of what science journalism is about (but shouldn’t be).

He mentions two disturbing trends:

1.”Too many science journalists don't actually possess a well-rounded knowledge of science. In many cases, regular reporters are asked to cover complex science and health stories.”

2. “Science journalists are every bit as biased as their more traditional counterparts, perhaps even more so. They routinely hold double standards in regard to analyzing science policies. They conflate scientific evidence with science policy, immediately labeling anyone "anti-science" if he or she disagrees with their cultural beliefs. Worse, science journalists feel no inhibition whatsoever to cheerlead openly for their favorite politicians and to heap scorn upon those they dislike.”

Dr. Berezow goes on to say:

“Both cultural bias and thoughtless reportage severely erode the integrity of science journalism.”

He then gives some tips for detecting fake science news stories. He says, for instance, that if the article is sensational, or about evolutionary psychology, or fails to make a distinction between evidence and science policy, or does not mention the limitations of the study it is reporting, we have good reasons to be suspicious.

Source:

Berezow, Alex. 2017. How to Spot a Fake Science News Story. American Council on Science and Health. (31 January).

Big Science, Fake News and the Post-Truth World

Roman soldiers carrying the treasures of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Image courtesy of A. Hunter Wright, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Big science does not like Brexit or Donald Trump. It attributes at least some of the dramatic changes that 2016 brought about to a loss of trust in experts and the proliferation of fake news items.

But one could hardly go to the lengths of extrapolation that New Scientist does in calling this the post-truth era.

After all, the post-truth era did not begin in 2016. It began ages ago, when scientists and thinkers began to speculate that God had nothing to do with the origin of the universe, of life and of humans.

The idea is spurious, as naturalistic processes cannot produce life. We now know that even the tiniest cell is far too complicated to have arisen spontaneously.

Life bears all the hallmarks of being designed intelligently.

Another disturbing lie has become so common that many do not recognize it as a falsehood.

It is known as 'occupied territory', and refers to East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

History will tell us that the Jews lived in that region over 3,000 years ago. The old part of Jerusalem was King David’s capital and his son Salomon built the first temple there soon afterwards.

The Arabs conquered (i.e. occupied) the land over 1,600 years after the first Jewish temple was built.

So, calling East Jerusalem and the West Bank occupied territory is fake news, unless, of course one admits that it is the Arabs who originally occupied land that had been Jewish for aeons.

The truth of the matter is that some Jews have decided to live in the area where Jews had lived before anyone had heard of the Palestinians.

Source:

Corner, Adam. 2016. Here’s how experts can rebuild trust in the post-truth era. New Scientist (20 December).