How much research is fraudulent?

Discussion in 'Science' started by Jack Hays, Jul 11, 2021.

  1. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    That is why Retraction Watch is such a valuable activity.
     
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  2. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    There is one that appeared today in my general science news feed today.

    https://retractionwatch.com/2023/03...ing-author-earns-five-expressions-of-concern/

    And according to the article, this doctor has a history of publishing the most questionable papers, that nobody is able to validate. Yet apparently they kept publishing them .

     
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  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I would bet that guy's career in science is coming to an end.

    In fact, I'd bet that journal is taking a hit, as professionals in the field definitely watch who the authors are and what journal is publishing them. There are publications that watch this in various ways.

    NO scientist looks at one paper and decides they are now informed - like people on this board frequently do.

    I'd also point out that papers in social sciences are known to be at risk of error due to ethics rules that leave social scientists struggling to find methods of control that the hard sciences are held to.

    Rules of ethics leave social scientists struggling to find experimental techniques.
     
  4. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Wiley and Hindawi to retract 1,200 more papers for compromised peer review
    [​IMG]

    Hindawi and Wiley, its parent company, have identified approximately 1,200 articles with compromised peer review that the publishers will begin retracting this month.

    Jay Flynn, executive vice president and general manager of the research division at Wiley, which acquired Hindawi in 2021, wrote about the forthcoming retractions in a blog post at Scholarly Kitchen yesterday.

    The plan to retract 1,200 articles, which the publisher expects to take a few months, follows Hindawi’s announcement last September that it would retract 511 articles across 16 journals for manipulated peer review. (We’ve tracked 501 retractions from 23 Hindawi journals since the announcement.)

    Continue reading
     
  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You make a strong point that simply finding one paper is NOT a valid inquiry.

    Scientists throughout the world (who ARE the major consumers of papers) know this well. They are careful about what journals they are looking at, what has been said about the journal and the paper they found in particular, who else is citing the paper and what those scientists say, what they know about the authors and other work they have done, etc.

    Yet YOU use single papers to support your minority views on a regular basis - even when the vast majority of scientists from around the world either do not agree with the paper or do not agree with what YOU think the paper means.


    You need to take your own topic here to heart.

    OR, are you just attempting to discredit science in general??? In that case, why do YOU post papers at all??
     
  6. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    "For in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.”
    ― Galileo Galilei
     
  7. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    That is not even slightly applicable to this issue.

    The catch here is that new ideas have to prove themselves.

    We didn't even accept Einstein's theories before they were solidly tested by those unrelated.

    You are NOT doing that.

    The challenge of Galileo has absolutely NOTHING to do with accepting each and every hairball idea someone dreamed up.

    Science progresses by HAVING ideas, but then doing the hard work of verifying which ones have that spark of reason.

    You are NOT doing that step. You are accepting each idea that matches your desires.
     
  8. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    I am accepting the ideas that make sense to me. And the Galileo observation was precisely on point.
     
  9. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Galileo did NOT suggest that we should accept every idea that we each thought was appealing.

    There is NOTHING about his life that would suggest he could POSSIBLY have said anything like you say.
     
  10. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    It's a cited quotation. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed, you're entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts.

    Sì perché l'autorità dell'opinione di mille nelle scienze non val per una scintilla di ragione di un solo, sì perché le presenti osservazioni spogliano d'autorità i decreti de' passati scrittori, i quali se vedute l'avessero, avrebbono diversamente determinato.

    For in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.”
    ― Galileo Galilei , Frammenti e lettere
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2023
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  11. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    That doesn't change your argument AT ALL.

    Yes. More people needed to see what he saw. More people needed to see what Einstein saw. More people needed to see what Darwin saw. Science is based on new ideas that qualified scientists find to have merit - ideas that prove themselves to be useful.

    Galileo believed his adversaries needed to LOOK.

    He had too many adversaries who essentially formed laws against looking. The only reason he wasn't prosecuted was that he had otherwise gained too much standing for that.
     
  12. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Sorry, but that's just an irrational rant. I won't try to reason you out of a position you didn't reason yourself into.
     
  13. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Former Yale prof faked data, says Federal watchdog
    [​IMG]
    Carlo Spirli

    A liver researcher who worked at Yale University for 15 years faked data in multiple papers and grant applications, according to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI).

    Carlo Spirli, who rose to the rank of associate professor before leaving Yale in 2020, “engaged in research misconduct by knowingly, intentionally, or recklessly falsifying and/or fabricating data” in four published papers, two presentations, and three NIH grant applications, the ORI said in announcing its findings today.

    Spirli, according to the ORI:

    Continue reading
     
  14. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I'm encouraged to see this effort to police and flag papers that include questionable science. It's one more of the many methods, and it's not an easy job to

    But, let's get a little perspective:

    So, STM, the leading global trade organization for academic and professional publishers, includes 28,100 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals in mid 2012, collectively publishing about 1.8–1.9 million articles a year.

    The number of articles published each year and the number of journals have both grown steadily for over two centuries, by about 3% and 3.5% per year respectively as found by STM.

    That is the number of PUBLISHED articles.

    Scientists today do NOT just review work that has been published, as the number of journals is nowhere NEAR large enough to publish all papers that would pass peer review. They carefully monitor mass repositories such as ARXIV.com (for physics, math, quantitative methods, etc.), which is where new papers go before being considered for publication.

    In fact, there are numerous papers studying methods scientists should use in finding quality papers pertinent to their work.


    So what does that mean???

    If we JUST count papers in reputable journals, there are about 2,000,000 papers PER YEAR.

    Here in in "Retraction Watch" there are claimed to be 40,000 retractions over the last 12 years.

    So, that is an error rate of somewhat less than .2%.

    Beyond that, the error rate is NOT evenly distributed. Areas of "soft science" include published scientific papers in serious journals, but they face the problem that the experimental controls available to hard science are just not nearly as available. For example, one can not isolate a population of humans and ensure that no outside influence affects outcomes. You can't cut them off from society. It's also not possible to risk the lives and health of subjects.

    Beyond that, the important aspect here is whether those papers were ever considered by other scientists. But, those other scientists are watching their 6 with SERIOUS care, because any mistakes they make in what is referenced could lead to their own papers being invalid - that is, this is another of the layers of defense that science is serious about. So, if Retraction Watch finds a problem paper, it is NOT an indication that the study polluted that science.


    Overall, the fact that Retraction Watch can identify such a miniscule number of papers, especially in the hard sciences is HUGELY ENCOURAGING!

    There is NO other source of information that has the credibility that our science provides.

    And, Retraction Watch helps PROVE that!

    https://www.stm-assoc.org/2012_12_11_STM_Report_2012.pdf
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...e are a lot of,year, in about 28,000 journals.
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2023
  15. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    The replication crisis (also called the replicability crisis and the reproducibility crisis) is an ongoing methodological crisis in which the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to reproduce.

    Replication crisis - Wikipedia
     
  16. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely. And, that's especially true in cases where controls are difficult. Thus psychology and medicine have shown more errors than physics or other such hard sciences. As mentioned, there are serious limitations on what scientists are allowed to do in controlling experiments based on humans.

    >>Still, your entire thread PLUS the org you tout appear to me to be nothing more than an attempt to assault the validity of science in America.

    NOT ONCE do the claims made by you get compared to the number of papers published (let alone the number of unpublished papers that are a serious contribution to science) in order to show the astounding accuracy accomplished by science.

    You fail to point out the many levels of checking that studies must pass through.

    YOU need to divide the cases per year your org finds by the total number of published papers.

    This info proves how absolutely incredible our science is.

    Don't get me wrong here. I'm all for major focus on increasing the watch for mistakes and fraud and related improvements.

    But, your findings are proof of the astoundingly high level of success our science brings.


    If you had ANY other justification for your focus on problems other than as an assault on science, you would STATE that.
     
  17. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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  18. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I've read their material more than once for various reasons.

    But, it doesn't answer my point - that your entire thread still must be considered as no more than an attempt to assault the validity of science.

    I'm glad retraction watch is there. But using it to deprecate science is in itself the very worst kind of science possible.


    The public needs to know the TRUTH:

    - science does an incredibly great job of policing itself.

    - the number of papers containing mistakes that invalidate the paper (purposeful or not) is stupendously miniscule.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2023
  19. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    The mission of RW, and mine in featuring RW, is to protect science.
     
  20. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You aren't reducing the number of problems in science.

    Your posts on this thread are not responsive to any issue being discussed.

    There is no possibility that what you are doing could be considered "protection".
     
  21. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Irrational paranoia doesn't do anyone any good.
     
  22. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I've said my point several times.

    You have not stated how your thread could POSSIBLY be supportive of science as you repeatedly claim.
     
  23. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    That's nonresponsive.
     
  24. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    It's a rare person who does not understand.
     
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2023
  25. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    There is nothing to understand.

    Your claim that this is to SUPPORT science could not be more fatuous.
     

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