Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday May 01 2017, @04:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the oops dept.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/paper-about-how-microplastics-harm-fish-should-be-retracted-report-says

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)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @12:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @12:48PM (#502243)

    Lying is IMHO a bit too strong word here. As a scientist I know there is often a thin line to be carefully walked. These authors seems to have misstepped a bit during the process.

    It seems there are various issues:
    1) People at the same research station claim the experiments were never performed. I have plenty of colleagues who don't watch my shoulder continuously when I'm at work, so they also don't know fully what I did or didn't do.
    2) Raw data stolen AFTER publication... that's sloppy, but data should also been stored BEFORE publication, which is IMHO also a responsibility of their university AND journal.
    3) Not mentioning detergent was washed from plastics. Failure from the authors and also peer reviewers (they should have caught that). Not sure why there was detergent on them, but a control with only the detergent (wash off of the beads) would IMHO be sufficient.

    Point 2 is the largest issue, why the article could be retracted... but then again... a lot of research could be retracted as well for the same reason. And repeating those experiments should be done and tested again.
    Point 3 should not result to retraction, but an erratum would be required.

    I would also not be surprised if "the industry" put effort into getting this paper retracted.