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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."
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.
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.