This was a year for splashy headlines about retractions, after some much-ballyhooed findings were pulled. Some prominent scientists each retracted multiple papers in 2015. And, of course, the last 12 months saw more and more cases of faked peer review. Here, in no particular order, are our picks for the top 10 retraction stories of 2015.
- When we at Retraction Watch reported in May that political science grad student Michael LaCour had faked some aspects of a 2014 Science paper...
- Plant biologist Olivier Voinnet would probably rather forget 2015....
- Can’t take criticism? Just make up your own reviews!....
- We saw another fall from grace for a paper that was a media darling upon publication...
- Can’t make this stuff up:..... The reason the paper was pulled? Plagiarism.....
- Some advice: if you ever hear a professor suggest a student “put up with”...
- In June, Columbia University biologists apologized to readers....
- Cancer researcher Robert Weinberg lost four papers this year....
- Neuroscientist Edward Awh lost four papers....
(Editor's Note: Number ten is my favorite because someone had to pay the penalty for this corruption. Grant money has made scientific integrity an oxymoron and the only way to fix it is to send someone to suffer financially, go to jail - or better yet - both! That would include most of those who make claims about global warming and the anti-pesticide acolytes in science and government. Here's number 10. RK)
10. While it isn’t about a retraction in 2015, this story was too remarkable to leave off our list: after confessing to spiking samples for an HIV vaccine experiment, Dong Pyou-Han—whose case we mentioned in last year’s retractions roundup—was sentenced to nearly five years in prison and ordered to pay back millions of dollars in grant funding. It’s not the only time we’ve seen felony counts for fraudsters, but the sentence makes it the most remarkable one. (He’s appealing the decision.) ....Read more
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