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."

Comments

indeed.

[President_Camacho]

Stem Cell Research Paper Recalled

Yes, I remember it quite vividly myself.

Sounds familiar!

[CyberGenesis]

"It shows how even peer-reviewed papers can sometimes 'slip through the net' and get to publication with inaccurate data." Perhaps this is a phenomena Slashdot should take note of?

No shit sherlock.

[Watson Ladd]

Peer review isn't about the accuracy of the data. It's about how the data supports the conclusions and whether the paper is notable enough for the journal. Peer reviewers don't have the time and money to duplicate every experiment they review.

Sexy science, bad science

[Ra Zen]

Stem cells are a hot topic, so people are willing to publish sloppy research or even fake date (remember Dr Hwang Woo-suk) just to get published fast and first. The same turns out to be true with other hot topics like flu research, where claims that the 1918 flu pandemic was of avian origin are severely overblown (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7088/f ull/nature04824.html; a free version is here: http://www.amherst.edu/~mhood/pubs.htm). Most scientifc research is solid, and most review processes work, but publications like Science and Nature often publish articles based on how sexy they are and can curtail the review process if they think the story will be a hit. Most other journals keep things steady and have very solid review proceedures.

Of course

[benhocking]

Anyone who's read a significant number of journal articles has spotted some huge errors that somehow got published. I know of one paper (not naming any names!) where in explaining how a calculation was done it had the line: 18-7=9. Clearly (from context) the line meant to say 17-8=9, but I found it humorous that such a fundamental error got past both the original authors proof-reading and the peer-review process. These things go back and forth a couple times, usually.

Peer review isn't a perfect process. It just helps reduce the noise-to-signal ratio.

Re:Of course

[malsdavis]

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.

Not quite.

[Assassin bug]

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?

Re:Peer review is self correcting

[NeutronCowboy]

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.