Two prominent scientists working in the area of error and fraud detection and correction, Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky, write on the state of the art in the Washington Post. Marcus and Oransky founded the organization Retraction Watch, which maintains a database of over 18,000 retracted scientific publications. They write that the rate of retractions seems to be now plateauing at about 1 retraction for each 1000 published papers (0.1% retraction rate). The rate grew significantly between 2000 and a few years ago, which raises the question of why that rise occurred. The overall rate of bad papers in the vast scientific literature is much higher, probably about 2-3%.
Marcus and Oransky find that about half the retractions are due to fraud and data manipulation and the other half is due to honest errors with no misconduct. Some workers has devised new methods to spot problems. Publishers now routinely submit each submitted paper to a computer check for plagiarism. That old trick won't work any more. Also, tests for statistical rigor are being applied to spot anomalous results. When good answers about strange statistical results from researchers are not forthcoming, fraud spotters are beginning to out cheaters to various media sources. In one case, ars Technica published results of two skeptics about suspicious-looking data that a psychologist published in a paper.
Another tool that is in use to spot fraud is a The False Claims Act, which allows whistleblowers to collect rewards for reporting faked data in grant applications and reports. Maybe most importantly, another major tool in increasing reliability is a change in attitude among scientists themselves to no longer tolerate either bad behavior or sloppiness. Marcus and Oransky write “put another way, fraud fighters have many more weapons in their armory than they did even 20 years ago, and a growing army appears more willing to use those tools.”
Not surprisingly, the process is imperfect. It reflects the complicated messiness of being human: “And for every whistleblower who sees his or her work lead to a retraction, we hear from several who are met with silence or retaliation. The work is just beginning.” With any luck, what is happening is a generational mindset change to one that is less tolerant of both honest mistakes and intentional misconduct.
B&B orig: 12/27/18
No comments:
Post a Comment