Gregg Semenza shared the 2019 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for discovering how human cells sense and adapt to different oxygen levels. He surely must have known better days. His work is now being avidly scrutinized by journals where it got published. Serious concerns have been raised about the validity of his reported data, […]
To make progress, science requires peer review. But the type of peer review that has assisted scientific research for centuries is a far cry from the self-appointed data police organization named Retraction Watch (RW). With its complete lack of accountability and nonexistent scientific credentials, RW only encourages unfiltered denigration. To quote Susan T. Fiske, chaired […]
The reproducibility crisis, especially in the soft sciences, is by no means the only crisis affecting publication of scientific research. As we and others have emphasized, an even greater danger originated with the self-appointed fraud police with its tactics of coercion, bullying and shaming arising with the advent of violent organizations like Retraction Watch. The […]
When it comes to scientific integrity, US research institutions are stuck in a dismal situation. A breed of data thugs bullying institutions and journals, and a mob of angry losers and science dropouts are effectively running the show from the squalor of venues like Retraction Watch. Sadly, a few members of the science establishment – […]
It now turns out that the American biophysicist Michael W. Deem from Rice University was far more involved in the widely condemned “CRISPR babies” experiment than was previously known. STAT learned that Deem was the senior author on a paper entitled “Birth of twins after genome editing for HIV resistance” submitted to Nature in November, 2018. The first […]
Carlo M. Croce is a towering figure in cancer genetics. His discovery of the molecular mechanisms in leukemia and other malignancies places him in the league of pioneers in the field like Janet Rowley. Croce’s peers have recognized his contributions, elected him to the US National Academy of Science in 1996 and showered him with […]
PAUL S. THALER is Managing Partner at Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman PC, a law firm with offices in Washington, D.C. One of his main areas of practice is scientific misconduct. He has successfully defended clients accused of research misconduct, becoming a towering figure in this aspect of civil litigation. In addition, his firm provides a peerless […]
On 26 June 2015, Science magazine published an article in its section “Policy Forum” entitled “Promoting an Open Research Culture” (B. A. Nosek et al. Science, Vol. 348, pp. 1422-1425, DOI: 10.1126/science.aab2374). The article and two related pieces (“Self-correction in science at work”, and “Solving reproducibility“) published in the same issue seem to have been inspired by the perception that there […]