>Neither is true. If—and given the history of such episodes, that’s a big if—journals end up retracting the three papers Tessier-Lavigne has said he has agreed to retract (two in Science and one in Cell), the number will represent less than a tenth of a percent of the retractions we expect to see this year. We at Retraction Watch, which tracks retracted papers, estimate that figure to be about 5,000—a tiny fraction of how many retractions should happen but don’t. And the careers of most researchers whose names are on the retractions that do happen haven’t suffered a scratch. The ones whose papers haven’t been retracted have even fewer worries.
I don't get it. They're just declaring that there should be 5000 retractions, and because only a tiny fraction of that actually ends up being retracted, that science doesn't correct itself? Where did this number come from? Is it just a list of studies with sus numbers? I feel like the authors (founders of retraction watch) is doing a massive disservice to their cause by casually skipping over this.
As with most things human, 'correction' can take a long time. Just one example: we're still constantly reading "Relativity shown to be right again." Baked-in biases and a kind of 'worshipfullness' of big Names like Newton (and misunderstanding what science can 'prove')[0] are all part of the stew.
Aristotle's ideas ruled the roost for millenia, before they were closely inspected. Just the other day I listened to someone complaining that mis-translations of his ideas resulted in some of the big blunders attributed to him (e.g. 'heavier things fall faster).
Right, you'd think there's never been a disturbing scandal in the scientific community at all in the past ever based on the headline.
The datapoint about so many retractions is a red herring. I think they don't expect people to click through the link and observe the graph that shows that, while rising, the current rate of retraction's still below 8% (I think they mean 8%. These guys label their y-axis with '%' but then use fractions of 1 instead of values out of 100. Gross.)
For a purely human-driven global pursuit, I'd say 8% error rate is well within acceptable margins. Seems like it's functioning as intended? Every aspect of society has to deal with inept spam nowadays, so it isn't like the issue being discussed is scoped specifically to science, either. Charlatans gonna charlatan.
Much as the profound utility of religion is diminished by the capital magnet and power hierarchy of the church, much the same for the difference between science and the institution of colleges. The modern church of liberalism is as corrupt as any theological institution is, thankfully the process of truth seeking eventually arcs towards truth.
Ah yes, because the only people doing science are liberals. There are no other people with any other political philosophies in modern science, so clearly your root-cause analysis is sound.
I don't get it. They're just declaring that there should be 5000 retractions, and because only a tiny fraction of that actually ends up being retracted, that science doesn't correct itself? Where did this number come from? Is it just a list of studies with sus numbers? I feel like the authors (founders of retraction watch) is doing a massive disservice to their cause by casually skipping over this.