Scientific paper retractions

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02071-6?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20220804&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20220804&sap-outbound-id=21AAA006F6D49DF211F99A48A0ED1B48E33EA86E

When my colleague Adam Marcus, editorial director at Medscape, and I launched the blog Retraction Watch in 2010, we didn’t realize we were riding a wave. At the time, we thought journals were issuing about three retractions per month. But that hadn’t been true for a decade. In 2010, they were averaging about 45 a month. Last year saw nearly 300 a month. Our database of retractions, launched in 2018, is up to nearly 35,000 entries. The oldest of those — a recanted critique of Benjamin Franklin’s work in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society — dates back to 1756.

On its face, the increase in retractions is good: a sign that science is becoming more scrutinized and rigorous, and that scientific publishing is doing its job. But it’s not that simple: journals publish more papers than they did in 1756, or even 2016. A higher proportion is now being retracted, but we estimate — on the basis of evidence from surveys, studies and reports from sleuths — that one in 50 papers would meet at least one of the criteria for retraction from the Committee on Publication Ethics, a non-profit collective in Eastleigh, UK. These include “clear evidence that the findings are unreliable”, whether because of falsified data, plagiarism, faked peer review or just ‘major error’, which might involve contaminated cell lines or another non-fraudulent problem. Yet the rate of retraction is still under 0.1%.
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I'm reminded: A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes – Quote Investigator

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Metaphorical maxims about the speedy dissemination of lies and the much slower propagation of corrective truths have a very long history. The major literary figure Jonathan Swift wrote on this topic in “The Examiner” in 1710 although he did not mention shoes or boots. Boldface has been added to excerpts:[1]

Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect…​

Bob Wilson