August 29, 2024 — It is a pain to sort through the errors that find their way into research publications. Even more painful is the experience of having to retract flawed publications. So when the Editor in Chief of Childhood Obesity retracted a fundamentally flawed, cluster-randomized trial, we see a reason to celebrate. Errors that involve clustering designs in […]
March 11, 2024 — We can point to any number of symptoms. The rise of measles because of skepticism about vaccination comes to mind. Certainly, we hear from people who reject scientific concepts about obesity. So it’s no surprise to us that a new report in PNAS documents high but declining public confidence in science. Arthur Lupia, David Allison, […]
December 22, 2023 — The year we are now closing marks a new record in retractions of research papers – more than 10,000 in a single year. Reporting for Nature, Richard Van Norden provides details about this milestone in research integrity. Does this impressive number mark progress? Or merely signal that the challenge of research integrity is enormous? A […]
December 12, 2023 — An amicable discussion about evidence for the effectiveness of soft drink taxes can be, well, somewhat taxing. Scientists with genuine curiosity about this subject often seem harder to find than true believers. But disappointment has come for those true believers. Because some of the evidence to back their firm beliefs in soft drink taxes recently […]
August 1, 2023 — What is it about research into honesty that attracts such problems? Retractions of papers about honesty in human behavior are multiplying like tribbles. Harvard is seeking retraction of three papers written by a star of behavioral research – Professor Francesca Gino. Her research was all about honesty. This is the most recent of a series […]
October 7, 2022 — Publishing research and academic journals is a business that is both important and highly profitable. The business model for this industry could be a whole post of its own, but it’s worth noting that just four companies publish more than half of the world’s academic papers. Elsevier alone published more than half a million peer-reviewed […]
September 2, 2015 — PR, research, and transparency keep crashing together with unpredictable results. One outcome is an ample supply of indignation, but a relative trickle of pragmatic critical thinking. The indignation comes from activists certain that nothing good could ever come from Big Food. Indignation also comes from folks from within Big Food who find themselves under siege by activists who are aided by […]
