A special challenge for science writers covering research today arises from science’s growing credibility problem. It stems from the cumulative effect of errors and exaggerations that has fueled a recent rise in retractions, misconduct, and fraud among peer-reviewed researchers.For reporters covering major scientific developments – from the search for alien life and genomics, to particle physics, climate change and cancer — it can be difficult to distinguish error from fraud, sloppiness from deception, eagerness from greed or, increasingly, scientific conviction from partisan passion. Findings in fields from climate change to vaccines can also be deceptively cherry-picked in service of a political cause.
Science takes pride in being self-correcting. But is it? Consider:
• Scientific retractions are on the rise: There are just 44% more papers published per year now compared to 10 years ago, and yet 10 times as many retractions annually.
• Replication is becoming more and more rare: Drug companies are starting to realize that the compounds they once hoped to turn into blockbusters may do nothing resembling what the original papers describing them said they would.
• Recent independent reviews of hundreds of widely-reported peer-reviewed studies of genetics, cancer, dental and heart disease experiments revealed that their findings were seriously flawed or used inappropriate methods; yet few have been corrected or retracted.
Some say all of this is evidence of “dysfunction” thanks to shrinking science budgets. But perhaps we’re just seeing the effects of more eyeballs on papers, including plagiarism detection software. In other words, maybe there’s always been this much misconduct in science. Either way, public trust in science may begin to fray. What forces are at work and how can science writers take account of them in their coverage?
We will examine the trends in retractions and reproducibility, and the challenge it poses for reporters, offer ways to increase transparency, and improve peer review and other aspects of the scientific process.
Panelists:
Ivan Oransky <http://retractionwatch.com, @ivanoransky, U.S.> is executive editor of Reuters Health and treasurer of the Association of Health Care Journalists’ board of directors. He blogs at Embargo Watch and at Retraction Watch. Before taking his current position in June 2009, he was the managing editor for Scientific American online, deputy editor of The Scientist, co-editor in chief of Pulse, the medical student section of the Journal of American Medical Association, and of Praxis Post, an online magazine of medicine and culture. Co-author of The A-Z Symptom Answer Guide (McGraw-Hill, 2004), he has written for publications including the Boston Globe, The New Republic, and USA Today. Before leaving medicine to become a full-time journalist, Oransky received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, where he was executive editor of The Harvard Crimson, his medical degree from New York University, and completed an internship at Yale. He also holds appointments as an adjunct professor of journalism and clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York University. He lives in New York City and Northampton, Mass.
Richard van Noorden <http://nature.com, @richvn, UK> Richard Van Noorden reports for Nature from London, focusing on chemistry and materials science, science policy, and journal publishing, including recent articles on retractions, science misconduct, and the open access movement. Before 2009 he worked for Chemistry World in Cambridge.
Daniele Fanelli <https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/staff/science_technology_and_innovation_studies/fanelli_daniele_> is a Leverlhulme research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK, where he uses advanced quantitative methods to help settle long-standing philosophical and sociological debates on the nature of science. The prevalence and causes of bias and misconduct are one of his main research interests. His 2009 meta-analysis on scientific misconduct is in the top 1% of Article-Level Metrics for all PLoS articles, currently counting over 100,000 downloads. His background includes a PhD in Evolutionary Biology and a Master in Scientific Communication. He has published several papers on the evolution of cooperation in wasps, and has written over 140 popular science articles for magazines including New Scientist, L’espresso and Le Scienze, before being awarded a Marie Curie European fellowship to start his current line of research. He is a regular media commentator on issues of scientific misconduct.
