Darryl Tubin
“At a time when scientific research is already being criticized by technology officials and scientists who criticize some technologies, dishonesty among scientists is causing anxiety among scientists and by publicists critical of science. It’s causing some regrettable and even joyful anxiety among the people.
Darryl Tubin wrote in 1985: At that time, institutions we now take for granted, such as the Office of Research Integrity, did not yet exist. We asked him to reflect on what’s happened in the last 40 years.
Today’s term “research misconduct” is a strange reminder of how much science is captured by commercial, politicized, and international interests. As an inactive social researcher of fraud for 40 years, I am amazed at how an investigative industry has emerged to monitor, analyze, report, and condemn the fraud all around us. . This “watcher community” represents an industry in a scientific age that most of us never imagined.
In the days before the Office of Research Integrity, many accused researchers and their academic institutions understood liability structures that were fair to all parties, adhered to due process, and resolved quickly. Good luck! Today, “Retraction Watch” headlines reflect that the publishing industry appears to be under siege. It’s full of retractions, plagiarism, AI shenanigans, undeclared conflicts of interest, whistleblowing, and the most dizzyingly disconcerting array of misdeeds I’ve ever seen.
Retraction Watch monitors an industry that is increasingly aware of research misconduct, from analysis to interpretation to reporting. By setting a low threshold, we focus on misconduct that is rare in a particular field, but significant when aggregated across fields. Sure, there’s a risk of overgeneralizing statistical anomalies, but readers care about violations that taint “their” field.
In this environment of deceit and suspicion, I worry about the siege of editors and the impact on collegial relationships between known and unknown authors and reviewers. I despair that the peer review system is declining under the weight of unpaid labor, unrealistic deadlines, and increasingly high stakes for outcomes that depend on publications, such as continued funding and tenure. I am.
In the current climate of AI, some, such as Bruce MacFarlane, believe that the traditional meanings of originality and priority (enshrined in Merton’s idealized scientific canon of 1942) They argue that it is being replaced by a new ethos of institutional norms focused on egoism, capitalism, and advocacy. . Therefore, it is an elevated finding that is considered clinically reliable and of benefit.
Within this rhetorical context, open access publishing traded originality for affordability. These publication “opportunities” are at a disadvantage for many young scientists and scholars, as well as those at institutions that do not have the funding or infrastructure to contribute or compete. In addition, there are currently exacerbated unconscious and conscious biases that prioritize rejection over acceptance of papers while subordinating scientific content to the authors’ assumed attributes (gender, race, education). The stakes have never been higher.
The “unintended consequences” of publication, as policy practitioners call it, are now plaguing the scientific community. From the perspective of an observer rather than a participant, I offer the watcher community some prescriptions (and some questions) with no solutions (or answers).
Research should not be subject to policing. Policies that change practices can regulate or undermine practices. Is the publishing honor system based on trust, perhaps always a fiction, now overshadowed by outside interests, or actually overridden by profit motives? It should be a dissemination device, providing credit in the process (and sometimes issuing retractions accusing and stating wrongdoing by the authors). The Journal is not created to be used as a gaming, trading, buying or selling resource. However, owners often try to make a profit in some way. Publication metrics should quantitatively capture what the community values. Are citation counts and an h-index of 20 or higher the best? Can these numbers be evaluated without knowing the individual or community context? So, articles in English, authors sponsored by Fortune 500 companies, sustainability in the field What can be evaluated qualitatively?The frequency of scandals such as fabrication and embezzlement should not be statistically significant. But the scale of these relatively small numbers of misdeeds can have serious real-world consequences for careers, funding, recognition, and trust in “scientific progress.” Peer review should be recognized as a service to the community. Reviewers who are experts in the field you seek reviews serve as surrogates for evolving yet validating community standards. Some of the best analysis is done in this behind-the-scenes role, but it remains largely unrewarded. Without this expertise, reviewers without subject matter expertise are committing fraud. Anonymity protects the identity of both the innocent and the guilty. It can preserve or dilute candor, and it can strengthen, distort, and calcify the judgment of the community at large. If participants in the publishing industry differ on the value of anonymity, what other values should they compromise or respect? Further experiments are needed to examine the link between ethics and practice. A policy includes at least three stakeholders. An editor who manages a journal. Federal agency funding enables authors to operate and regulates their misconduct. Too often, triads seem to be competing with each other rather than cooperating. A common corporate goal is elusive. How can policy makers mediate more constructive relationships? The watcher community needs to be mindful of both the ‘laboratory culture’ and the personal aspirations of researchers. What motivates watchers’ actions, such as documenting aspects of wrongdoing, establishing accountability for those accused, and promulgating rules for adaptation by various research communities? Can it act as a broker, or does it necessarily have to be partisan because it invests in the publishing industry?
These considerations stem from nearly half a century of my own publishing, editing, and reviewing. Maybe I’m naive, unrealistic, and stuck in a previous era. Just as Merton’s canon provided 20th century scientists with the rhetoric to portray their research behavior as noble and meritocratic, MacFarlane’s formulation is It highlights the dark underside of competition and greed. Both capture the core of the truth. As the pressure of opportunities and situations increases, deceptions and errors appear in publications.
Science therefore requires policy analysis that goes beyond specific research fields and publication models. My thoughts here are: What is publishing for? What do knowledge producers and consumers hold sacred? What do they think is fundamental to the advancement of their fields? It raises the fundamental question of purpose: what we are thinking about in our actions. Some of these questions are undoubtedly topics of ongoing debate in various communities, countries, and journals.
Can the watchdog community, which includes you and me, do more than report perversions in scientific publications? Indeed, how can watchers seize the moment and strengthen the push for better practices? Is it?
Darryl E. Tubin is an independent consultant, former federal employee, and founding director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Center for Advancement of Science and Engineering Capacity in Savannah, Georgia.
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