The below is just one of several fascinating stories coming out of my favorite Newsletter, Retraction Watch Daily. If you can believe it, this is not the worst of the stories they have done in the last week or so. Another was about PLOS hitting the "100 retractions this year" line. A third was about the rising number of "predatory journals"' current characteristic activities.
In my experience with highly regarded peer reviewed journals, this type of thing never gets past the front door, let along even close to getting a response. If you noticed (perhaps you didn't), this article reported on an incident at an obscure Australian journal which probably has a couple of hundred subscribers/readers at most and is on what I would call the edge of the medical universe.
As far as the number of "retractions" in a given year, (they claim about 100), compare it to the number of article/studies published in all of the peer reviewed/non-peer reviewed medical and quasi medical related journals, which is literally a gigantic number world wide.
IOW, the retractions amount to probably 1/10 of 1% of all the medical articles published.
Having watched this sort of thing, I can assure you that the actual retractions are far and away dwarfed by the resistance to retracting, the extreme time some journals take to foot-drag notifications, and the consistent erosion and confliction they typically exert in providing and policing legitimate peer review these days...having seen a couple pawned off on a few classmates here and there to ghost for a major professor or committee member more than once along the long way...
But then, perhaps I'm biased or suffer from insufficient sampling in my self-supervision, unlike some other ethical journeymen workers I'm sure.
Meanwhile, how is the general reader to discern a quality journal from those not so high? How is a field scientist or design engineer to check on the veracity of some other specialist's quality control and science ethics, find the time for it or acquire a few more degrees so as to do it themselves, or respond to business driven pressures in protecting scientific integrity on the corners no one else can or will preserve? And in an era where reproducibility is often thrown by the wayside? Oh, by the way, here's an unusual rare gem:
All part of Social Darwinism I suppose. Those who fall prey to bad science deserve it, those end consumers of the eventual applications whose lives are victimized by it are just natural herd culling, right? Is that what we are back to?
“…Retraction Watch is one of my favorite websites and I use it as a teaching tool in my Research Methods class. While my goal has always been to not be mentioned on your site, I realize that, now as a journal editor, it very well may occur.” — Gary Miller, associate dean for research, Emory
“Retraction Watch is one of the best innovations in science in recent years. The wit enhances the message. Tune in.” — former BMJ editor-in-chief Richard Smith
I was interested to see what obscure Australian journal was being referred to. It is in fact an Australasian publication, probably a little too subtle for some. Probably not a big readership by European and nth american expectations but simply click bait! ?
Yes indeed. Can't do without it. The human psyche is not built to laser it's critiquing eyes and discipline inward, it is most inefficient in that skill, the lions who are going to eat you are not behind your eyes, but outside you on the horizon. Therefore humans project outward and are largely incapable of self-supervision ) as now behavioral science is finally demonstrating (prior to the very late 20th century it was widely held but not fully scientifically demonstrated theory, as the science was still moving forward with its own maturation in comparison to the hard sciences...with unfortunate consequences where psychiatry was concerned, applied as it was with little real science).
The implications of the failure of the self to fail to overcome its own blind spots as source of error is most risky and often debilitating, seeing as it is that professions, especially sciences, classify "Ph.D." as the minimal top level of scientific training, meaning allegedly matured beyond the need for supervision and critique by others, by having demonstrated the ability to perform real research from end to end (which we call "dissertation," which is the student's proof by example of a complete scientist's ability to advance the scientific knowledge from end to end), which legitimately advances the stock of legitimate scientific knowledge and record as proof of ability to join the club.
But professionally not justifiable by scientific means, but by social, business, and political means, the self-supervision arrogation granted by "independent practitioner ability-demonstration to produce science" accomplishment" as the Ph.D. research pinnacle traditionally is meant to signify and confers, renders the individual professional (minimally fledged independent "scientist," which is what Ph.D. and "doctor" level is supposed to denote but really only connotes), it leaves all specific science fields at risk of blind spots due to personality, defensiveness and ego, ambition, honesty, and simple brain-build to not look to the self as required sources of error to control for, and constitutes a dangerous lacuna through which error flows and for which legitimate peer review and reproducibility was intended to battle. (As witness, in my opinion only of course) our learned friend's earlier response when considered that it might apply to a long-held-and-loved conflict bias ---defensiveness, discounting, and diminution, reflex, expressed as rhetoric impulse rather than considered thoughtful response. As such, denying or defending it off-hand as she did, by saying her personal "experience," not unlike the sales & advertising technique called "testimonial" (not guaranteed to be free of subjective, and usually intended by get around the usual requirments of legitimate proof, which getting-around is the intended sales goal) is an exemplar of what I consider an ethical breach personal investment, deep baked in. Now, all we need is some scientist and engineer combination using such baked in potential error that comes from assuming that the other guy's work is fully trustworthy without need of examination ) itself a violation of scientific method intended again to combat such error factor), when designing the brakes on your car...or the attitude control on your Boeing 787-Max.
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