The Scientist website has an article that focuses on the problem of "zombie" scientific literature, that is, articles that do NOT represent fraud or misconduct but contain errors -- often very important ones -- that are not being handled correctly (e.g., retraction, links to corrections, post-publication reviews, etc.). You can read it here:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/45868/title/The-Zombie-Literature/&utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TS_The-Scientist-Daily_2016&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=29139068&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8k1gouELk4_XikuZRftXSRB8MiqXwG_xq5-Bj45TO9yrKWgJVv7L4GCEib9qsekXFByloj20ASd1OIi-WMgMcM-Ki2gQ&_hsmi=29139068 One particular situation involves Svante Pääbo who as a graduate student extracted human DNA from a 2,400 year old Egyptian mummy (a child). His successful extraction and analysis of the DNA helped to spur the development of the field of ancient DNA analysis -- you couldn't have the Jurassic Park movies without this development. There is only one problem with Paabo's research: the DNA he analyzed was not from a mummified child but was from a present day human whose cells had contaminated the sample being analyzed. Ooops! So, how does one deal with a situation like this, that is, given its role as a "foundational" paper for the field, do you retract it? Paabo mentioned the error in passing in a later paper but there are no other indications that the research is not what it seems. Do we need new models to connect scientific literature to critical evaluation mechanism that are being set up (the article review a few of these) or should we just let it be? I think that the "Freudian Iceberg" falls into this category and though this has been corrected to some degree, there still is no single source that points out the problems with this conception. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=48649 or send a blank email to leave-48649-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
