Majority of Science Paper Retractions Due to Misconduct
Study confirms intentionally opaque notices distort the scientific record and that the majority of retractions are due to misconduct. A new study out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) identifies that two-thirds of retractions are due to misconduct — a far higher figure than previously thought.
Specialist watchdog on science paper misconduct, Retraction Watch blog reports:
“A new study out in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today finds that two-thirds of retractions are because of some form of misconduct — a figure that’s higher than previously thought, thanks to unhelpful retraction notices that cause us to beat our heads against the wall here at Retraction Watch.”
But not all retractions will be due to diligent journalism. Also in the courtrooms junk science is being put under a legal microscope and being found wanting. A major field of research falling foul of the law is climatology. Dr Tim Ball, a prominent skeptic of the man-made global warming narrative is proving to be an adept champion in this arena.
In 2011 Dr. Ball felt the wrath of two well-funded climate researchers prominent in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). Dr Michael Mann a paleoclimate analyst and Dr. Andrew Weaver a climate modeler separately sued Dr. Ball for libel in the British Columbia Supreme Court, Canada. However, because neither researcher would show the court the details of the calculations that led to their published findings the courts have had no choice but to dismiss the lawsuits. Dr Ball’s libel attorney is now filing expensive counter claims.
The final estimated financial losses to Mann and Weaver are set to run into millions mostly taken up by legal fees and awards of damages. Dr. Ball, as chairman of Principia Scientific International (PSI) has been urging governments to be more proactive in dealing with the worrying rise in this kind of white-collar crime. Dr. Ball has cited hundreds of leaked emails from the 2009 Climategate scandal that exposed how editors of climatology journals were coerced into publishing biased papers by gangs of researchers who conspired to ‘pal review’ each other’s submissions. Clearly, a far cheaper and more efficient way to expose science misconduct is the approach of good old-fashioned investigative journalism taken by Retraction Watch (RW). Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky who spearhead RW’s campaign conclude:
“It’s now clear that the reason misconduct seemed to play a smaller role in retractions, according to previous studies, is that so many notices said nothing about why a paper was retracted. If scientific journals are as interested in correcting the literature as they’d like us to think they are, and want us to believe they’re transparent, the ones that fail to include that information need to take a lesson from those that do.”
Recently, another champion of higher science standards, Marc Morano reported that the Journal of Climate was compelled to withdraw the Gergis et al. paper that made the bogus claim that temperatures of the last 60 years were the warmest of the last 1,000 years. RW are adamant that the Journal of Climate (as with so many other journals) is failing to provide adequate details of why such papers are being retracted. RW insist, “It’s not clear to us.”
It is this refreshing demand for greater transparency that is encapsulated by the fast growing new science association, Principia Scientific International that publishes openly peer-reviewed science papers that are required to apply the strictures of the traditional scientific method. As PSI senior fellow Hans Schreuder observed, “The closer we look, the more junk science we uncover.”
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