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Notable retractions of possible interest

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Three items from Retraction Watch:

1. Unhelpful retractions:

A group of authors have withdrawn a 2011 Journal of Biological Chemistry paper, but then appear to have re-published almost the same paper a month later, only this time with just five of the original nine authors.

As we’ve come to expect from the JBC, here’s the full retraction notice, in all its inexplicit glory …

If you ever find out what happened, tell us.

2. Faked data:

In what can only be described as a remarkable and swift series of events, one of the authors of a much-ballyhooed Science paper claiming that short conversations could change people’s minds on same-sex marriage is retracting it following revelations that the data were faked by his co-author.

The thing to see with popular culture issues is, it doesn’t matter what’s true anyway, just what people want to believe. So fakers can have a field day and, usually, rest easy as long as they are telling a politically correct story. Sometimes, even so, the cracks not only show but get noticed.

3. Failure to replicate:

A highly cited study examining the risks of heart disease in post-menopausal women with symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been retracted by its authors because they could not replicate the results.

Maybe they were tempted to publish too soon, in which case a retraction is honourable. Meanwhile, their study was cited 222 times.
Retraction Watch notes,

It’s not clear when the retraction notice — which is paywalled — was published. The notice says February 20, 2015 , but the abstract of the original paper says “published online” on May 2, 2013. That may refer to the original paper, or to the notice, we’re not sure.

Failure to replicate is bound to be a bigger issue, of course, with a common situation than a rare one.

For example, you might faithfully report that you saw a cougar (North American mountain lion) in the wilderness park adjacent to a hog barn. And maybe no one else ever saw one since. But the species’ small numbers, secretive habits, and justified fear of farmers could account for the rarity of actual sightings. You shouldn’t retract your story if you are sure of the facts.

But when we are talking about clinical issues that arise every day, we should expect replication.

It would be interesting to see if there is a pattern to the retractions, of which there has been a big increase of late.

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