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It took more then 10 months, but today the scientists who blew the whistle on a paper in Science about the dangers of microplastics for fish have been vindicated. An expert group at Sweden's Central Ethical Review Board (CEPN) has concluded that the paper's authors, Oona Lönnstedt and Peter Eklöv of Uppsala University (UU), committed "scientific dishonesty" and says that Science should retract the paper, which appeared in June 2016.
Science published an editorial expression of concern [DOI: 10.1126/science.aah6990] [DX]—which signals that a paper has come under suspicion—on 3 December 2016, and deputy editor Andrew Sugden says a retraction statement is now in preparation. (Science's news department, which works independently of the journal's editorial side, published a feature about the case in March.)
The report comes as a "huge relief," says UU's Josefin Sundin, one of seven researchers in five countries who claimed the paper contained fabricated data shortly after it came out.
Related: Study Demonstrates Harm to Fish Caused by Microplastics (oops)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday May 01 2017, @12:38PM (1 child)
I think the problem is larger than most people realize. Once upon a time, there were relatively few researchers. Professors received some base funding and facilities from their universities, maybe occasional grants, but it wasn't something you went into for the money. Grad students made ends meet by working as teaching assistants, and there weren't that many of them, either. You published periodic papers on your work, but if you had nothing to say, you said nothing.
Over the last few decades, several things have changed:
- Science has become big business. Researchers started spin-off companies. More government funding is available. Some researchers lost their neutrality, and were more interested in fame and fortune than in science. Science became "sexy".
- As the game became more attractive, more people wanted in on it. More students, leading to expanded programs, leading to more students. Universities discovered a new source of income: not only the students, but the grant money. Let's be honest: there just aren't that many people who are really capable of PhD in hard science, math, or engineering. Expanded offering led to a decline in overall standards, especially when lower-tier universities wanted in on the game. But these programs were now financially important to the universities, so standards were secondary.
- Part of the expansion has been into "soft" fields. Most of the research in social sciences, gender studies, in education, and in many other "soft" fields is questionable to begin with, and now we have so much more of it.
- As the fields grew, the university administrators needed some way to evaluate the professors. While they can measure the funds the professors bring in, they had no clue about the content of their work. So how can a clueless administrator to evaluate a technical researcher? Why...by counting the papers they publish! This is the origin of publish-or-perish.
The end result: not enough research topics to go around, wannabe researchers who aren't qualified to study the topics anyway, but they must publish something to get their funding.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @01:22PM
You are probably spot on with your analysis. Everyone (well 95% of everyone) in academia is now a busy body.