A number of studies have spotted a worrisome trend: although the number of scientific journals and articles published is increasing each year, the rate of papers being retracted as invalid is increasing even faster. Some of these are being retracted due to obvious ethical lapses—fraudulent data or plagiarism—but some past studies have suggested errors and technical problems were the cause of the majority of problems.
A new analysis, released by PNAS, shows this rosy picture probably isn’t true. Researchers like to portray their retractions as being the result of errors, but a lot of these same papers turn out to be fraudulent when fully investigated. If there’s any good news here, it’s that a limited number of labs 38, to be exact are responsible for a third of the fraudulent papers that end up being retracted.
“In recognition of this week, against censorship, and in support of writers and readers, the Guernica Daily will be publishing interviews with authors whose books have been banned or challenged and essays on works of fiction that have been oft removed from schools, libraries and book stores.â€
Here’s the thing. Peer review is not perfect. It’s not a panacea. It’s simply the basic level of due diligence. By submitting work for peer review, a scientist has allowed people outside her own team to critique her work. And the journal might require some changes to the paper based on the critique — anything from edits for clarity to requesting that the scientist perform another experiment in a different way. If a paper hasn’t gone through peer review, you should be more skeptical of it. Avoiding peer review means that the researcher decided to show the public her results before allowing those results to be critiqued by independent experts.
But, at the same time, just because something has gone through peer review doesn’t mean it’s been certified to be accurate. It just means that roughly three other experts have looked at the paper before publication. There’s still a lot of room for things to go wrong. Peer review is like the bouncer at the door. The bouncer doesn’t guarantee that every person in the bar would be a good person for you to date. Even if a paper gets through, you still have to think about it critically and evaluate it on its own merits.
Gartner Research estimates that in two years’ time 10–15% of social media reviews will be fake, either written or paid for by people with an interest in the product’s success.
Earlier this month, hackers took over one of Reuters’s Twitter accounts and sent out eight fake tweets, including “Obama signs executive order banning any further investigation of 9/11” and “White house spokesperson says financial and technical support given to #AlQaeda operatives in #Syria.” The account was shut down. Hackers then broke into the agency’s blogging platform on two separate occasions and posted short, realistic “reports” of fake news that favored the Syrian government in its ongoing clashes with the rebel Free Syrian Army.
