How many scientific papers should be retracted?

Çokol, Murat; Iossifov, Ivan; Rodriguez‐Esteban, Raul; Rzhetsky, Andrey

doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400970

Cited by 82 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…3D). An association between impact factor and retraction for fraud or error has been noted previously (4,6,29,30). This finding may reflect the greater scrutiny accorded to articles in high-impact journals and the greater uncertainty associated with cutting-edge research.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications

Fang

Steen²,

Casadevall

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

962

761

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15 ps −1 and a bath temperature of 298 K were used to propagate the equations of motion within the Langevin approach. Periodic boundary conditions were applied to simulate a continuous medium." should instead appear as "A friction coefficient of 10 ps −1 and a bath temperature of 298 K were used to propagate the equations of motion within the Langevin approach. No boundary conditions were imposed; the system freely evolved in vacuum."These errors do not affect the conclusions of the article.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Misconduct accounts for the majority of retracted scientific publications

Fang

Steen²,

Casadevall

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

962

761

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Alternatively, the variable prevalence of duplication could be partly accounted for by variations in the average number of figures and the number of panels per figure, which is likely to differ per journal but was not determined in our study. The inverse correlation between the prevalence of problematic papers and journal impact factor contrasts with the positive correlation observed for research misconduct resulting in retraction (8,(21)(22)(23). Although the association was weak, it may suggest that higher impact journals are better able to detect anomalous images prior to publication.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

The Prevalence of Inappropriate Image Duplication in Biomedical Research Publications

Bik

Casadevall²,

Fang

2016

Preprint

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Inaccurate data in scientific papers can result from honest error or intentional falsification. This study attempted to determine the percentage of published papers that contain inappropriate image duplication, a specific type of inaccurate data. The images from a total of 20,621 papers published in 40 scientific journals from 1995 to 2014 were visually screened. Overall, 3.8% of published papers contained problematic figures, with at least half exhibiting features suggestive of deliberate manipulation. The prevalence of papers with problematic images has risen markedly during the past decade. Additional papers written by authors of papers with problematic images had an increased likelihood of containing problematic images as well. As this analysis focused only on one type of data, it is likely that the actual prevalence of inaccurate data in the published literature is higher. The marked variation in the frequency of problematic images among journals suggests that journal practices, such as prepublication image screening, influence the quality of the scientific literature.

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“…Of course, this analysis begs the question of how much false science is actually being produced (Cokol et al 2007, Fanelli, 2009. Like studies of criminal behavior based on reported crimes, our analysis of false science is necessarily limited by our ability to detect violations; we can only analyze articles retracted from the literature (in the observable period), thus obscuring the background rate at which false science is actually produced.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both of these facts are consistent with the percentage of articles retracted from journals that appear in our sample. Of course, one interesting, open question in this area regards the total number of articles that should have been retracted, which would reflect the true number of instances of false science articles (Cokol, et al, 2007); this, however, has not been and cannot easily be examined (Lacetera and Zirulia, 2009). …”

Section: Ii1 False Science -Definitions Extent and Institutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%