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Stem Cell Research Paper Recalled
MattSparkes writes "One of the best-known stem cell papers describes adult cells that seemed to hold the same promise as embryonic stem cells. Now some of the data contained within the paper is being questioned, after staff at a consumer science magazine noticed errors. It shows how even peer-reviewed papers can sometimes 'slip through the net' and get to publication with inaccurate data."
The title for this post is misleading. The paper has not been recalled. Some of the data are in despute and it reads as though there will be some corrections posted by Nature. But if you had read the paper to the end you would have noticed that Nature is still deciding on the paper. Oh, and might New Scientist have anything to gain by overhyping a technical error in a Nature paper... hmmm?
Not only that, but it also demonstrates the danger of pulling out a single paper as being the last word on a particular topic. Unless you are damn sure that lots of people have gone over it and done some in-depth verification on it, it's better to wait for confirmation than to take it at face value.
This is how scientific consensus is important. In a "yup, I checked it, I got the same thing" way, not in a let's-vote-like-we're-voting-for-congress way.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Lots of journal articles have simplistic calculations here and there. The point of showing such calculations isn't to prove that the author is capable of performing 3rd grade maths, its so that the reader knows where number X came from. IMHO It is probably the most frustrating thing when papers / books / lecture notes just present numbers and presumes the reader realises where they were derived from.