There is an interesting dispute going on at Benny Peiser’s CCNet among some eminent scientists about the date of the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary. It’s not an issue that I’d ever thought about very much – although my 5-year old granddaughter has gotten interested in dinosaurs and asked me why they are “extincted”. (She’s the one […]
The Massachusetts General Hospital, a Harvard teaching affiliate, has just released the latest in a series of publications discussing data withholding, concluding that: "Data withholding clearly has important negative effects on the integrity of the scientific education system in the U.S." In some of the medical areas, there are at least occasionally patent or commercial […]
Some interesting comments in today’s Washington Post. Thanks to Roger Pielke for the reference. Roger pointed to the following: Rather, we need to recognize just how arduous and painstaking good science usually is and remind ourselves that data do not become dogma when published, but only when independently validated. Quite so. The article also pointed […]
A few days ago, Science retracted the 2005 Hwang paper. But it turns out that the retraction was wrong, since the retraction left 2 lines pending. Now Science is trying to figure out how to re-retract the paper. You’d think that they could have got the retraction right. Update Jan. 8, 2006: It appears that […]
There is an interesting discussion at PBS on peer review, in which Donald Kennedy, editor of Science, defended their existing "rigorous" processes, but re-iterated: the journal has to trust its reviewers; it has to trust the source. It can’t go in and demand the data books. If I criticize Science’s due diligence procedures, I don’t […]
I’ve planning to discuss Nature and Science policies on archiving and due diligence, I’ve got lots else to do, but have gotten sidetracked in the fascinating details of the unfolding of the Hwang controversy. Here’s a preliminary account.
Lots of people have criticized me for the mere idea of auditing scientific articles. Think of the many blog-posters who have ridiculed this as a total waste of time for scientists, who should be getting on with more "productive" work. Here’s an endorsement for the concept reported in yesterday’s Washington Post.
In May 2005, I mentioned Hwang et al. [Science 2005], now at the center of a firestorm. This reference was entirely by chance, since my concern was the precipitous UCAR press release of the Ammann and Wahl paper and their failure to report its subsequent rejection. (Of course, they later got the editor changed and […]
A science scandal of Bre-X proportions has been developing through December engulfing both Science and Nature. New developments on Hwang’s stem cell research have been occurring daily. Hwang, like Mann, was one of Scientific American’s 50 Visionaries. Unlike Mann, he has been stripped of his title. I started looking at the story from a peer […]
There is an interesting controversy at Nature and Science about peer review in the context of Hwang’s stem cell research (google for links.) I’m going to post a comment about this in light of my own experience with both. First, I want to post some information (courtesy of a reader here) about archiving policies at […]
Climate Audit 