New Editorial Policies in Science Hospitable to Fraud
From the San Francisco Chronicle, by Spyros Anrdreopoulous
Quoting article: I have long suspected that the insidious rise of publication costs and fierce competition among journals may have contributed a hospitable environment for fraud.
Concern about this problem first surfaced in a 1987 letter to Science by Dr. Robert G. Martin, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health. "It would appear," he wrote, "that some leading journals have policies to accept incomplete manuscripts if they are judged scientifically exciting. These same journals often reject well-documented work under the pretext that it lacks sufficient general interest, particularly when a preliminary report on the same topic has appeared elsewhere.
"The message to young investigators is clear: Give us your half-baked ideas and spare us the boring details. At least 10 percent of what appears in our leading journals, while certainly not fraudulent, is, however, incomplete, inadequate and even incompetent. In this milieu, if scientific fraud is not increasing, it will be. The victims will be all of us."
....
When journals go beyond accepted boundaries, they may risk their credibility. In its issue of July 17, 2003, for example, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine denounced congressional efforts to ban use of medical treatments derived from embryonic stem cells. But as news reports have noted, they invited authors to contribute articles on embryonic stem-cell research to highlight their promise, implying that they would be given extra attention beyond what is accorded to completed research chosen for scientific merit. "We want to be sure that legislative myopia does not blur scientific insight," the editors declared in explaining their new editorial policy.
Last year, California taxpayers were persuaded to put themselves $3 billion in debt to support embryonic stem- cell research -- only to discover later, as The Chronicle reported in September, that the promised cures are "nowhere close, maybe decades away." The article reflected the consensus of a conference sponsored by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state agency created to implement Prop. 71. Stem-cell research is a highly worthy endeavor and merits our support. But it is one thing for politicians to make promises; it is another for scientists and journal editors who value objectivity and factual accuracy to assume advocacy roles that teeter on the edge of credibility.
Quoting article: I have long suspected that the insidious rise of publication costs and fierce competition among journals may have contributed a hospitable environment for fraud.
Concern about this problem first surfaced in a 1987 letter to Science by Dr. Robert G. Martin, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health. "It would appear," he wrote, "that some leading journals have policies to accept incomplete manuscripts if they are judged scientifically exciting. These same journals often reject well-documented work under the pretext that it lacks sufficient general interest, particularly when a preliminary report on the same topic has appeared elsewhere.
"The message to young investigators is clear: Give us your half-baked ideas and spare us the boring details. At least 10 percent of what appears in our leading journals, while certainly not fraudulent, is, however, incomplete, inadequate and even incompetent. In this milieu, if scientific fraud is not increasing, it will be. The victims will be all of us."
....
When journals go beyond accepted boundaries, they may risk their credibility. In its issue of July 17, 2003, for example, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine denounced congressional efforts to ban use of medical treatments derived from embryonic stem cells. But as news reports have noted, they invited authors to contribute articles on embryonic stem-cell research to highlight their promise, implying that they would be given extra attention beyond what is accorded to completed research chosen for scientific merit. "We want to be sure that legislative myopia does not blur scientific insight," the editors declared in explaining their new editorial policy.
Last year, California taxpayers were persuaded to put themselves $3 billion in debt to support embryonic stem- cell research -- only to discover later, as The Chronicle reported in September, that the promised cures are "nowhere close, maybe decades away." The article reflected the consensus of a conference sponsored by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the state agency created to implement Prop. 71. Stem-cell research is a highly worthy endeavor and merits our support. But it is one thing for politicians to make promises; it is another for scientists and journal editors who value objectivity and factual accuracy to assume advocacy roles that teeter on the edge of credibility.
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I am trying to update the blog with some new stories. I hope to get this done soon.
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