"Compromised science" news/opines (includes retractions, declining academic standards, pred-J, etc)

In an agenda-driven establishment, though, these type journalists may be becoming the norm rather than the exception.
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The Atlantic unfairly disses Dawkins (Jerry Coyne)
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/09/27/the-atlantic-unfairly-disses-dawkins/

INTRO: The Atlantic decided they needed a piece on Richard Dawkins’s “farewell tour”, but they either chose the wrong journalist or asked the author to write a semi hit-piece that made Dawkins look bad. Not completely bad, mind you, for the author does mention a few good things Dawkins has done. But, overall, the piece depicts an aging man who simply needs to fight battles, and now there are no battles to fight. Once it was creationism, says senior editor Ross Andersen, but now it’s the lesser battle of “fighting wokeness”.

Since Andersen himself shows signs of “progressive” thought in his piece (he defends, for example, the teaching Māori legends as science in New Zealand), he may have an animus against Richard. I don’t know, but I know two things. First, Andersen shows no signs of having read Dawkins’s books or followed his career. Second, Anderson ends his piece, which describes his opinion of Richard’s recent lecture in Washington D.C., by saying “I was bored.” His pronouncement is distinctly un-journalistic given that Andersen describes a very enthusiastic audience lining up to get books signed, and bespeaks a reviewer more concerned with his own personal reaction than with the effect of Dawkins, his writing, and his Washington discussion on the audience (and on society in general)... (MORE - details)
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Richard Dawkins keeps shrinking (the article mentioned above, via non-wall MSN)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-new-atheists-are-getting-old/ar-AA1rfjeW

EXCERPTS: For nearly an hour, Dawkins stuck largely to science, and it served him well. The latter half of the evening was heavier on culture-war material. To whoops and hollers, Dawkins expressed astonishment that anyone could believe that sex is a continuum, instead of a straightforward binary. He described safety-craving college students as “pathetic wimps.” It all seemed small, compared with the majesty of the ideas he’d been discussing just minutes before.

Near the night’s end, Dawkins told the old story of Trofim Lysenko, Stalin’s chief agronomist. Lysenko did not believe in Mendelian genetics. [...] The tale of Lysenko is almost fable-like in its moral purity, and Dawkins told it well, but only as a setup for a contemporary controversy that he wished to discuss—an ongoing dispute over school curricula in New Zealand. According to one proposal, students there would learn traditional creation stories and myths alongside standard science lessons, out of deference to the Māori, whose language and culture British settlers had tried earnestly to erase... (MORE - details)
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Scores of papers by a prominent neuroscientist and top NIH official fall under suspicion
https://www.science.org/content/art...entist-eliezer-masliah-papers-under-suspicion

In 2016, when the U.S. Congress unleashed a flood of new funding for Alzheimer’s disease research, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) tapped veteran brain researcher Eliezer Masliah as a key leader for the effort. [...] But over the past 2 years questions have arisen about some of Masliah’s research. A Science investigation has now found that scores of his lab studies at UCSD and NIA are riddled with apparently falsified Western blots—images used to show the presence of proteins—and micrographs of brain tissue. Numerous images seem to have been inappropriately reused within and across papers, sometimes published years apart in different journals, describing divergent experimental conditions...
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Fraud, so much fraud (related to above)
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/fraud-so-much-fraud

It seems like a strange thing to take someone with a long and respected career and subject them to what would essentially be a Western blot and photomicrograph audit before offering them a big position. But if the NIH had done that in 2016, they wouldn't be in the position they're in now, would they? How many people do we need to check? How many figures do we have to scrutinize? What a mess.
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‘Afraid to talk’: researchers fear the end for science in Venezuela
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03144-4

Scientists, some of whom spoke to Nature on the condition of anonymity because they fear retribution from the government, say that Venezuelan research was already censored and underfunded before the election, but that they anticipate things will get even worse. They point to a bill passed by Maduro’s administration last month that regulates non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which some researchers rely on for funding or to help publish their research. This latest chapter in Maduro’s reign could spell the end for independent science in the country, they say.
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Since it revolves around ethics, would have posted this solely in philosophy. But there's that bit at the end about peer review coercion and the pressures of the "academic paradigm".
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85% of Americans want animal experiments phased out, new survey shows
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1059750

EXCERPTS: A new survey shows that Americans’ attitudes toward experiments on animals have changed significantly in recent years, with the vast majority now favoring phasing out animal experiments in favor or other research methods. The poll was conducted by Morning Consult on Sept. 5, 2024, and included 2,205 adults.

[...] Many peer reviewers have a preference for animal-based research methods. “We recently found that half of researchers surveyed had been asked by reviewers to add an animal experiment to their otherwise animal-free study,” says Catharine E. Krebs, PhD, who leads the COLAAB and is a medical research program manager with the Physicians Committee. “The publish-or-perish academic paradigm can pressure researchers to concede these requests—even when they don’t think they’re justified.”

Animal methods bias can cause delays in publication or force authors to resubmit to other journals, often lower-impact ones... (MORE - missing details)
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Simufilam: controversial Alzheimer's drug revisited a year later
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/cassava-revisited

People have made the case to me that even if there are problems with Cassava's management, that the drug's effects are interesting enough to pursue. But what if those interesting effects are a mirage? Faked up to raise money? Should we be dosing Alzheimer's patients with a compound that (at best) we have no confidence in and at worst could be an outright fraud? After all that's happened, what does it take to stop a [drug] trial?

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PhD students in Sweden accessed mental-health services at increasing rates as their studies went on
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03136-4

A study of Swedish PhD candidates has shown the vast toll that doctoral studies can take on mental health. The survey adds robust data to discussions about the mental-health crisis in academia. Studies and anecdotal evidence have long shown that PhD students can experience immense pressure to publish and to find funding and jobs in a brutally competitive landscape.
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Pain researcher in Italy up to seven retractions
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/10/03/pain-researcher-in-italy-up-to-seven-retractions/

A physiatrist in Italy has lost four publications this year after two groups of researchers raised concerns about his research. The physician had three papers pulled in 2022, as reported at the time. Those retractions followed a critique by Cochrane researchers who analyzed data in 10 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) headed by him

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New engineering dean has two retractions for authorship manipulation
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/10...-two-retractions-for-authorship-manipulation/

A newly appointed dean at the University of Guelph in Canada has had two papers retracted for “evidence of authorship manipulation.” Another article by the researcher, seems to match a paper that had its authorship advertised for sale, according to a post on PubPeer. He stands by his group’s work in the two retracted papers, but agreed with the retractions because he thought the investigations “raised some valid concerns.”

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Hidden hydras: uncovering the massive footprint of one paper mill’s operations
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/10...sive-footprint-of-one-paper-mills-operations/

At the heart of any paper mill’s operations sits an unavoidable contradiction. On the one hand, paper mills must keep their operations clandestine lest they be discovered and have their clients’ articles retracted en masse. On the other, paper mills must make themselves visible to some degree to attract new customers. [...] About a year ago, we began probing search engines ... Sure enough, one of our first searches directed us to the front page of the Academic Research and Development Association (ARDA), based in Chennai, India. ARDA presents itself as a professional organization...

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Web of Science puts mega-journals Cureus and Heliyon on hold
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/09/30/web-of-science-puts-mega-journals-cureus-and-heliyon-on-hold/

Web of Science, Clarivate’s influential database of abstracts and citations, has paused indexation of new content from the open-access journals Heliyon and Cureus, apparently due to concerns about the quality of their articles.
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A scientific fraud. An investigation. A lab in recovery.
www.thetransmitter.org

A scientific fraud. An investigation. A lab in recovery.

Science is built on trust. What happens when someone destroys it?
www.thetransmitter.org www.thetransmitter.org

EXCERPTS: In recent decades, scientific misconduct—formally defined as the falsification, fabrication or plagiarism of data—has lurched into the spotlight. [...] a romantic mythology often surrounds scientists. They are portrayed as “more than human, being like gods in their creativity, and also as less than human, being deprived in their work of the passions, attitudes and social ties given to ordinary men,” wrote Robert K. Merton, the founder of the sociology of science, in a 1970 essay. As a result, he wrote, the public idealizes and idolizes them.

Framed in this way, it can seem implausible for scientists to ever fake data. But the scientific world is not powered by curiosity alone: It also runs on a credit system, Merton argued. The scientists who create new knowledge are rewarded with recognition. Jobs, funding, and sometimes awards and fame, follow. Under the credit system, misconduct starts to make more sense.

And when misconduct does occur, it creates a fallout zone in the lab. Certainly it did for Bloodgood’s group. That’s because misconduct is not just a scientific betrayal; it’s a personal one as well, says C.K. Gunsalus, director of the National Center for Principled Leadership and Research Ethics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “It’s very hard for a lab to recover.”

This article is about that recovery, and what happens to the people left behind... (MORE - details)
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comment: But it is a job, and as such the ultimate personal motive is to earn money and survive. At worst, theoretical physics might degrade into something like the humanities, where you publish papers about ideas that similarly may have little to do with reality or are simply moral and political creations (social prescriptions and ideologies) looking for activist movements to adopt them.

But some lab physicists may need a flow of hypotheses that they can test (to maintain their jobs). So sterile publications from theoretical physicists would not be desirable in that context. There may be a rough counterpart of that task in the humanities, where a section of scholars justify their employment by reviewing and critically evaluating the outputted concepts and arguments of other scholars.
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This is why physics is dying (Sabine Hossenfelder)

VIDEO EXCERPTS: For decades there have been two different schools of thought in the field of loop quantum gravity, one of which, represented most prominently by Lee Smolin, has insisted that the theory can be tested with upcoming experiments. The other, represented by Carlo Rovelli, is fine with the theory being untestable for all practical purposes. So now the situation is that either the theory is falsified or it’s not falsifiable.

It’s exactly the same crap as with string theory, and supersymmetry, and inflation and dark sectors and many other research bubbles in the foundations of physics. It’s mathematical fiction. It’s nothing to do with reality anymore. I don’t understand why people get paid for doing this, and I say this as someone who once got paid for doing this.

[...] I recently heard Eric Weinstein say in a video that we are seeing the beginning of a collapse in the foundations of physics, because it’s so obvious now that string theory was a huge mistake. I think you’re wrong Eric. This will keep on going and going until physics is entirely dead.

[...] Everyone who works on this just repeats arguments that they all know to be wrong to keep the money coming. Because let’s be real, these people sit on cozy tax-paid positions with no other task than producing useless papers that no one understands and therefore no one dares criticize...

 
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C C said:
comment: But it is a job, and as such the ultimate personal motive is to earn money and survive. At worst, theoretical physics might degrade into something like the humanities, where you publish papers about ideas that similarly may have little to do with reality or are simply moral and political creations (social prescriptions and ideologies) looking for activist movements to adopt them.

But some lab physicists may need a flow of hypotheses that they can test (to maintain their jobs). So sterile publications from theoretical physicists would not be desirable in that context. There may be a rough counterpart of that task in the humanities, where a section of scholars justify their employment by reviewing and critically evaluating the outputted concepts and arguments of other scholars.
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This is why physics is dying (Sabine Hossenfelder)

VIDEO EXCERPTS: For decades there have been two different schools of thought in the field of loop quantum gravity, one of which, represented most prominently by Lee Smolin, has insisted that the theory can be tested with upcoming experiments. The other, represented by Carlo Rovelli, is fine with the theory being untestable for all practical purposes. So now the situation is that either the theory is falsified or it’s not falsifiable.

It’s exactly the same crap as with string theory, and supersymmetry, and inflation and dark sectors and many other research bubbles in the foundations of physics. It’s mathematical fiction. It’s nothing to do with reality anymore. I don’t understand why people get paid for doing this, and I say this as someone who once got paid for doing this.

[...] I recently heard Eric Weinstein say in a video that we are seeing the beginning of a collapse in the foundations of physics, because it’s so obvious now that string theory was a huge mistake. I think you’re wrong Eric. This will keep on going and going until physics is entirely dead.

[...] Everyone who works on this just repeats arguments that they all know to be wrong to keep the money coming. Because let’s be real, these people sit on cozy tax-paid positions with no other task than producing useless papers that no one understands and therefore no one dares criticize...

Click to expand...
Haha, I've already posted this one, on the "Did Einstein Overthrow Newton?" thread, thinking it would be fun to put another 50p in Axocunth's slot..........ding, ding, ding, jigger jigger........:biggrin:

But also see my remarks apropos Baggotty Jim* etc. Peter Woit also thinks this aspect of physics has taken an unproductive turning: see his review of Jim's book: https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6002

(*He and I, once upon a time in the 90s, worked in the same team at Shell, before he went back to full time science writing.:))
 
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Retracted articles in scientific literature: A bibliometric analysis from 2003 to 2022 using the Web of Science
https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(24)14651-8

ABSTRACT: Retractions serve a crucial role in maintaining the integrity and accuracy of scientific literature. There has been growing interest in understanding the patterns behind retractions. This bibliometric study analyzed retracted articles published between 2003 and 2022, indexed by the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science Core Collection database.

A total of 8,466 retracted articles were identified, revealing an overall increase up to 2019, followed by a decline. A total of 109 countries contributed to the retracted articles, with China and the United States having the highest absolute numbers. In addition, the articles were published in 2,347 different journals, with Tumor Biology recording the largest number of retracted articles.

The top 10 most cited retracted articles indicated that data and image integrity issues were the main reasons for retraction. The primary reasons for retractions, identified by linking the retracted articles to the Retraction Watch Database, were data and results issues followed by plagiarism and duplication.

In conclusion, the present bibliometric study offered an overview of the status of retracted articles indexed by the Web of Science Core Collection over the past two decades. These findings provide insight into areas where scientific integrity may be compromised and serve as a guide to foster a responsible research environment. (MORE - research paper)
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