breaking benjamin we not alone 2004 rare

But retractions remain relatively rare: Only about four of every 10,000 papers are now retracted. The data confirm that the absolute number of retractions has risen over the past few decades, from fewer than 100 annually before 2000 to nearly 1000 in 2014. The rise of retractions seems to reflect not so much an epidemic of fraud as a community trying to police itself.Īmong the most notable findings: Although the absolute number of annual retractions has grown, the rate of increase has slowed. Our analysis of about 10,500 retracted journal articles shows the number of retractions has continued to grow, but it also challenges some worrying perceptions that continue today. Still, the data trove has enabled Science, working with Retraction Watch, to gain unusual insight into one of scientific publishing's most consequential but shrouded practices. And determining which author is responsible for a paper's fatal flaws can be difficult. Not all publishers, for instance, publicize or clearly label papers they have retracted, or explain why they did so. It is not a perfect window into the world of retractions.

It includes more than 18,000 retracted papers and conference abstracts dating back to the 1970s (and even one paper from 1756 involving Benjamin Franklin). That list, formally released to the public this week as a searchable database, is now the largest and most comprehensive of its kind. They began to assemble a list of retractions. The attention also helped catalyze an effort by two longtime health journalists-Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus, who founded the blog Retraction Watch, based in New York City-to get more insight into just how many scientific papers were being withdrawn, and why. Still, the surge in retractions led many observers to call on publishers, editors, and other gatekeepers to make greater efforts to stamp out bad science. And whether suspect papers were becoming more common-or journals were just getting better at recognizing and reporting them-wasn't clear.

Sometimes the reason for the withdrawal was honest error, not deliberate fraud. Although statistics were sketchy, retractions appeared to be relatively rare, involving only about two of every 10,000 papers. The alarming news came with some caveats. Science, it seemed, faced a mushrooming crisis. Boldt may have even harmed patients by encouraging the adoption of an unproven surgical treatment. Fraud accounted for some 60% of those retractions one offender, anesthesiologist Joachim Boldt, had racked up almost 90 retractions after investigators concluded he had fabricated data and committed other ethical violations.

Nearly a decade ago, headlines highlighted a disturbing trend in science: The number of articles retracted by journals had increased 10-fold during the previous 10 years.

Breaking benjamin we not alone 2004 rare