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107 Cancer Papers Retracted Due To Peer Review Fraud (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The journal Tumor Biology is retracting 107 research papers after discovering that the authors faked the peer review process. This isn't the journal's first rodeo. Late last year, 58 papers were retracted from seven different journals -- 25 came from Tumor Biology for the same reason. It's possible to fake peer review because authors are often asked to suggest potential reviewers for their own papers. This is done because research subjects are often blindingly niche; a researcher working in a sub-sub-field may be more aware than the journal editor of who is best-placed to assess the work. But some journals go further and request, or allow, authors to submit the contact details of these potential reviewers. If the editor isn't aware of the potential for a scam, they then merrily send the requests for review out to fake e-mail addresses, often using the names of actual researchers. And at the other end of the fake e-mail address is someone who's in on the game and happy to send in a friendly review. This most recent avalanche of fake-reviewed papers was discovered because of extra screening at the journal. According to an official statement from Springer, the company that published Tumor Biology until this year, "the decision was made to screen new papers before they are released to production." The extra screening turned up the names of fake reviewers that hadn't previously been detected, and "in order to clean up our scientific records, we will now start retracting these affected articles...Springer will continue to proactively investigate these issues."
Science today has its own cancers.
You see the influence of money, and the power it commands, everywhere nowadays. Sportspeople who, 50 years ago, were forbidden to earn a penny from their talent on pain of exclusion for professionalism, can now earn millions in a few short years. Result: an explosion of drug-taking and other forms of cheating. Politicians who had no visible property and very little income when they began their careers seem to retire as multi-millionaires. Result: an explosion of dishonest practices, including treason. But the worst of all is the corrosive influence of money on science - which used to be the hallmark of reliable, objective truth. It's usually quite subtle, indirect, almost unnoticeable. But it leads to very clear and definite consequences. Scientists who challenge the established paradigms are no longer just up against intellectual inertia; they will be mocked, traduced, slandered and often find that strings are pulled to get them dismissed or ignored.
One good example (out of the thousands that could be mentioned) is the career of Dr John Yudkin, the British scientist who suggested 40 years ago that dietary fat was unlikely to cause disease, and that sugar was a much more likely cultprit. That ran directly counter to the gospel being preached (most profitably) by the American scientist Dr Ancel Keys, who told the world that fat and cholesterol cause heart disease, strokes and cancer. Keys directly libelled and slandered Yudkin, with the result that his work was disgracefully neglected. Today it is perfectly clear that, in all essentials, Yudkin was right and Keys was wrong. But guess which of them died rich and famous?
"Pure, White and Deadly" by Dr John Yudkin https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Wh...
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
If cancer research is affected by incidents like this, what's to say that climate science isn't similarly affected?
Pay no attention to the research assistant behind the curtain!
If cancer research is affected by incidents like this, what's to say that climate science isn't similarly affected?
Pay no attention to the research assistant behind the curtain!
As long as humans are involved, there will be fraud along the way. But there is one beg difference between science and the religio-political world. We seek out and correct our fraud and errors. And once the fraud is exposed, the perp is a pariah, as opposed to the other world where they are often re-elected or otherwise rewarded.
Its also good to point out that the fraud was in the review process, not the work itself. So the tools that did it were extra stupid in their laziness.
As for AC's hand wringing, climate science is not cancer research, with obscure aspects only a few people know anything about. The physics is out there, the data can be perused by anyone, it's like permanent peer review.
In fact, if we want to see intellectual fraud vis-à-vis climate science, we need only look at the denialists work. We'll have to give some rope here, because denialists tend not to publish actual papers, but "publish" on line denial.
But you do the same process. You look at the claims and walk them back to the source. You look at the graphs and check for accuracy and graphic tricks. You check references - although in denialist work, there are not many. You also check timeliness. In an ongoing field of research like climate science, is the latest data being used?
So AC need not worry, climate scientists are acutely aware of the political scrutiny of their work, and are very very careful.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Most of (all?) the names of the authors of the last 107 papers seem Asian (Chinese?). And the Nature article about the previous 58 ones says that all of them were from Iran. These two issues are apparently confirming what seems the most probable reason for problems of this type (being discovered by the publisher): too permissive/greedy/keen-on-growing local authorities, universities or governments.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
In fact, if we're truly practicing anything resembling science, we can have only one hypothesis in this situation: all peer-reviewed research may have been affected by faulty peer review processes.
Ah yes, the oft forgotten rule of science; we are only allowed to have one hypothesis. Oh wait, you just made that up.
Over 100 papers were allegedly improperly reviewed in this one journal alone. The only assumption we can realistically make is that this problem is far more widespread than we may believe.
This is like saying that since someone is found to be a serial murderer, we should assume that their neighbors are also serial killers. Even if we have no actual murders to tie them to, the only assumption we can realistically make is that this problem is far more widespread than we may believe.
So you have your hypothesis, that's fine. The next step is to find evidence that supports it, which comes before you assert that your hypothesis is the One To Rule Them All.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Its also good to point out that the fraud was in the review process, not the work itself. So the tools that did it were extra stupid in their laziness.
That's speculation. The only KNOWN thing is that the authors of the papers perpetrated fraud to get peer reviewed and published. No research has been done into replicating methodology, experiments, or results.
The list of authors with retracted studies looks like:
Zhang, J., Xu, F ...
Chen, X., Liang
Zhang, Y. & Liu, C.
Li, CY., Yuan, P., Lin, SS. et al.
Zhang, RC. & Mou, SH.
Dong, Y., Zhuang, L. & Ma, W.
Wang, J., Xu, Y., Fu, Q. et al.
Huang, Y., Liu, X., Kuang, X. et al.
Liu, C. & Wang, H.
Li, F., Liu, Y., Fu, T. et al.
Li, W., Wu, H. & Song, C.
He, J. & Xu, G.
Wu, D., Jiang, H., Gu, Q. et al.
Yin, Y., Feng, L. & Sun, J.
Xu, JQ., Liu, P., Si, MJ. et al.
Chen, H., Tang, C., Liu, M. et al.
Tian, X., Ma, P., Sui, C. et al.
Li, ZC., Zhang, LM., Wang, HB. et al.
Jin, B., Dong, P., Li, K. et al.
Sun, HL., Han, B., Zhai, HP. et al.
Xu, W., Wang, F., Ying, L. et al.
Luo, S., Guo, L., Li, Y. et al.
Chen, H., Zhou, B., Lan, X. et al.
Lv, S., Turlova, E., Zhao, S. et al.
Liu, C., Yin, L., Chen, J. et al.
But, you know, it's totally racist to say that there is a culture of dishonesty in China, and if you don't trust products of China to be what they say they are, you're a big bad racist.
I guess you don't believe in gravity either?
When there are a high number of faked peer reviews, and the public learns of them, I expect a growing number of "science is wrong" and flat-earth thinking in reponse. I see it more all the time on social media. We need to be criminally punish these fraudsters. A slap on the wrist isn't enough.
Its also good to point out that the fraud was in the review process, not the work itself. So the tools that did it were extra stupid in their laziness.
If they didn't do the peer review, it's probably because the work wouldn't survive it.
As for AC's hand wringing, climate science is not cancer research, with obscure aspects only a few people know anything about.
Climate models are huge and complex, only a few people can truly claim to understand them. They're not lab experiments where you can easily isolate causes and exclude other factors or extrapolate how the ecosystem will respond. There's huge local variations in climate that people use as proof or counter-proof because this year was particularly cold or warm without any validity as a global phenomenon.
That said, just because there's a lot of detail we're working on doesn't mean there's much doubt about the big picture. Take evolution for example, we're still doing tons of research into the exact mechanisms that create and divide species but there's no real scientific competition from creationism or lamarckism that genetics isn't real. "Survival of the fittest" does work as a one-liner summary.
The greenhouse effect is clearly real, if Earth had no atmosphere it would have a surface temperature of -18C instead of +14C. So when they're talking about trying to keep the temperature change because of human activity under 2C we're really talking about a <10% change in the effect. We are just a small part of a pretty big puzzle of how this all works.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Scott Adams would like a word with you:
In fact, there's more incentive to lie about climate science than cancer research: More immediate funding is at stake, more groupthink applies, it will be decades before others can prove you wrong, and unlike falsified cancer research, people won't die because you misdirected searcher.
And as for saying "the fraud was in the review process, not the work itself," that's like saying "Well, Anthony Weiner was only caught sexting. He never actually cheated." The odds that the fraud we've caught is the only fraud committed by those willing to commit fraud would seem pretty low...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
"current "OMG we're all gonna die!" extreme rhetoric" - thats your flawed representation of the issue so you will ridiculed if you take that tone. the cancer papers problem is from just a relatively few morons trying to game the system, no need to cast the net further to others because that is just trying to create a conspiracy to create doubt. Prove you accusation about climate research otherwise you haven't got a leg to stand on.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
What these journals need to do in retraction lists like this is to group the articles by the organizations at which the lead author works. That might generate some higher-level angst than just calling our the authors.
Detecting ones own errors and humbly correcting them are respectful virtues. Never making mistakes is beyond the capabilities of us mere mortals.
From TFA,
Tumor Biology ... open about the past instances of peer review fraud, and ... have already introduced new robust peer review practices expected from all SAGE journals.
It's not just one journal. It's many of them
Seven out of how many journals ?
Its also good to point out that the fraud was in the review process, not the work itself.
So it turned out the papers weren't really peer reviewed at all. So much for science then. Good they were retracted.
Yes, it was good they were retracted. That's science working to expose the people who don't follow the rules.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Science today is having it's own religious fit of a protest march. it's truly fitting that this is being posted today. Science very much needs heretics. Zealots like Tyson and Nye don't help the cause of science by trying to be inquisitors.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> Yes, it was good they were retracted. That's science working to expose the people who don't follow the rules.
That only works if you are allowed to be a heretic. If you are expected to always follow blindly (like Tyson and Nye suggest), then such investigation isn't going to occur.
That attitude should be encouraged NEVER. It doesn't even matter if you're a "mere layman" expected to just passively swallow whatever the current scientific establishment comes up with.
If a middle school teacher or a museum curator can't manage not alienating people, try employing a magician.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I can and have replicated the experiments in that area. This is part of any decent public school education. What you are suggesting is that we should take anything on faith that is more complex than that.
I became an atheist not so much of my disbelief in the supernatural but of my mistrust of mere mortals that were the gatekeepers of the relevant knowledge. I knew that they were fallible and corruptible.
Why should I hold science to a lower standard than religion?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If a middle school teacher or a museum curator can't manage not alienating people, try employing a magician.
I suggest getting all our science information off of politicians who are paid for their votes and beliefs. Hard to go wrong that way, and its proven by history to be the only sure fire path to the truth.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The authority of science is based on the trust that is vested in the peer review.
I am speaking about science the method, where the only "authority" is empirical evidence gained through repeatable experiments. The authority you are speaking of is the institution (or community) of science.
Peer review is not a fundamental part of the scientific method. You are more than welcome to distrust all peer reviewed research and attempt to repeat or falsify the results yourself. Strictly speaking, the scientific method demands that we do just that, but we generally don't because it's highly impractical.
The hypothesis that peer reviewed science is true science, is falsified if even only 1 example can be found in which the theory isn't true.
I'm not sure what you mean by "true" science, but it seems that you have switched to another common meaning of the word, which is science the accepted body of knowledge. Just because something has been peer reviewed doesn't mean it automatically becomes a part of scientific knowledge. In other words, you're right, the hypothesis is false, but it's not the revelation you think it is.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
If you would like to use this as evidence for a sweeping and universal hypothesis, shouldn't you at least have a brief look at the retraction notice that the story is based on?
https://link.springer.com/arti...
From a first glance, all of the papers come from China (click on affiliations to see which institutes they work at). China and India have been notorious as paper mills for decades. So why are you extrapolating this to work from countries where peer reviewers are ,a, very easy for editors to directly find and contact, and ,b, can usually be communicated with directly without the need for a translator?
I think these are general talking points and they don't prove anything either way.
But I don't understand the claim that it is basic physics.
The basic physics behind this all is energy. A body in orbit around an energy source like the sun will receive energy from the star. This energy transfer might be used to perform work, or heat. A body such as Mercury, which gets a lot of energy for the sun, but has no storage other than it's rocky surface, will show huge differences between it's daytime temperature of 700 Kelvin, and it's nighttime temperature of 100 Kelvin. The amount of insolation that Mercury receives is understood, and the temperatures observed let us know what is the physical attributes of the planet.
The earth also receives solar insolation, but something is different. The earth has an average temperature that does not have the wild excursions that Mercury has, and also is higher than expected. Something is different. There is residual internal radioactive decay based heat but on the surface that is negligible except for localized sources like volcanos. So how is it that the night time temperatures on earth do not plunge like they do on Mercury?
First thing is that the rotational period of the Earth is much higher. A person on Mercury would only see one day every two years. But without some property that retains energy, every place on earth would freeze every night.
What is another big difference between Earth and Mercury? I'll cut to the chase here - atmosphere. The atmosphere consists of several different gases. Mostly Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, and Carbon Dioxide, and Water vapor.
As it turns out, by virtue of basic experiments, Water vapor turns out to have a lot of energy absorption. And by experiment, add roughly between 40 to 70 percent of the energy retention ability of the atmosphere. Carbon Dioxide between 10 ant 26 percent, Methane between 5 and 10 percent, and Ozone between 3 and 7 percent. This is all verifiable by experiment and is reproducible.
Note that water vapor has a strong local variation, and that CO2 is actually not as strong a greenhouse gas as many others. Methane is more powerful in energy retention. It is a bit of a wild card at this point because recent large releases were not accounted for in earlier models. It also degrades in the atmosphere sooner thant CO2 - although it's still not considered short term. There are also gases known as anti-greenhouse gases, that have less transmittance of energy inbound than outbound, which is to say that they act to release more energy to space than they retain in energy. These typically come from volcanic eruptions, and in the form of sulfur aerosols. Nasty stuff, sulfuric acid. This is a short term effect, since the Sulfuric acid eventually rains out.
Now from basic experiments we come to comparing the laboratory effects to real life effects. They compare pretty nicely. So well in fact, that it takes an extraordinary effrot to refute them with any credence. The observed effects line up with the theory, which lines up with the observed data in the geologic order. and across more than one discipline.
Is it possible that there is no such thing as global warming by increased amount of Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? Absolutely possible. But a whole hellava lot of basic physics would have to be discarded and rewritten. The situation is very simlar toYoung earth creationists. Ya gotta have something to replace all of the physics that must be abandoned and replace it with something else that looks exactly like the abandoned physics, except for that one single thing you don't believe in
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.