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Ins
New Member
1 Post |
 Posted - 06/20/2007 : 21:08:33
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I am very concerned about the misuse of a Principal Investigator's status to influence the real story, Umea Plant Resaerch Center's inadequate investigations, and Science Journal's non-response to calls for investigations into its editorial and peer-review process.
Please read the following article, and more importantly, the stimulating and disturbing discussion that follows it, mainly by a Chinese-American scientist (Dr. Siv Liu).
http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53081/ (you can leave your comments there also, no registration is required!)
The questions to be addressed are...
--Chinese student's claims that the interpretation was done by Dr. Nilsson,
--That he had clearly marked the outlier data, and that the paper was submitted in his absence,
--Dr. Nilsson's conduct during the prior lab meeting,
--Dr. Nilsson's prior knowledge about other papers submitted to Science,
--How they could have done these experiments in a reproducible manner in 10 days,
--How Science could have accepted this paper in 14 days, and published in a week after that,
--Why the investigations did not involve an interview of the Chinese student who was extensively smeared by Dr. Nilsson, etc.
I want to get your opinion on what should be done in such cases, which in my view are rampant in biological research, but never come in such a limelight.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 06/20/2007 : 23:07:51 [Permalink]
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Do you have any evidence that Umea didn't invesigate at all, or that their investigation was inadequate?
Any place that recieves grant money from governments is going to take this kind of incident fairly seriously, I'd think.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 12:13:20 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ins
I want to get your opinion on what should be done in such cases, which in my view are rampant in biological research, but never come in such a limelight. |
What's to be done? If Science continues to act as its accusers say, it will marginalize itself over time. Problem solved. If Nilsson continues to act as his accusers say, no grad students will want to work with him. Problem solved. If the university continued to act as its accusers say, fewer legitimate scientists will want to work there. Problem solved.
And isn't the publishing time always accelerated for online publishing? Even for journals like Science? How long was the paper, anyway? |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 06/21/2007 : 18:25:26 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ins
I am very concerned about the misuse of a Principal Investigator's status to influence the real story, Umea Plant Resaerch Center's inadequate investigations, and Science Journal's non-response to calls for investigations into its editorial and peer-review process.
Please read the following article, and more importantly, the stimulating and disturbing discussion that follows it, mainly by a Chinese-American scientist (Dr. Siv Liu). |
My impression (from what I've read so far) is that Dr Shi V. Liu (note spelling) has an axe to grind. I can certainly understand that Liu wants to defend a fellow country man and researcher.
Nowhere can I find that Liu has tried to communicate with any of the other researchers that did retract. So currently, we only have Liu's word against Nilsson's. I also wonder if the "accusation" has been overstated. Liu is "certainly" relying on many "quotes" when he/she is writing about this "affair".
Liu claims to be editor-in-chief of Scientific Ethics. What kind of publication is that? I'm unfamilliar with it.
How much credibility does Scientific Ethics have?
Whoever is more honest? I think it's hard to draw a conclusion.
Somewhere, there should be hard evidence.
I want to get your opinion on what should be done in such cases, which in my view are rampant in biological research, but never come in such a limelight.
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For starters, everyone involved in the paper should have their statements taken. Also, there should be lab notes by them to be examined.
From what I understand, Huang (and the fellow researchers, on Huang's word only) actually did omit data. For whatever reason. If anomalous or atypical data was recorded, it should have been included in the report/paper with an explanation to why it should be discounted, rather than just omitting them.
The other commenters seem only to take advantage of the bandwagon that Liu got rolling.
Edited to add:
Originally posted by Ins
--Why the investigations did not involve an interview of the Chinese student who was extensively smeared by Dr. Nilsson, etc. |
Maybe they didn't manage to come in contact with Huang. Even Liu writes "[Huang] was not contacted by me due to the difficulty in finding his contact information"
Oh and by the way... Correct me if I'm wrong here: doesn't Huang as First Writer have the chief responsibility of the scientific integrity of the work? |
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| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 06/22/2007 13:38:57 |
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Research Ethics and Science Journal's Peer-Review
