Official "Science News" Thread

[xilman]

Originally Posted by rogue

There's a coconut joke in there somewhere...

There is, and a very old one. According to legend someone wrote a letter of complaint because when she switched on the wireless (that show you how old it is!) she heard the words "great tits like coconuts" and immediately switched off in shock. The BBC responded that she had heard a few words of a programme about feeding wild birds in the garden.

[rogue]

Originally Posted by xilman

There is, and a very old one. According to legend someone wrote a letter of complaint because when she switched on the wireless (that show you how old it is!) she heard the words "great tits like coconuts" and immediately switched off in shock. The BBC responded that she had heard a few words of a programme about feeding wild birds in the garden.

I was thinking in the Monty Python vain...

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by LaurV

They will first wait for the methane to evaporate, but the wait will take long enough for the budget to be approved

Cynicism is easy, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Batalov

Last time they trumpeted, they've badly flopped. (search for NASA's Arsenic Bacteria)

Yes, and now they're being appropriately cautious.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Cynicism is easy, isn't it?

Sure. The guys who know, do. The one who can't do, teach others to do. The one who can't teach the others either, become leaders. Our bosses are good examples. The last, who can't teach and can't lead, become critics... Anyhow, I love NASA for the solder wick, the most. This is one of their inventions I use every day, and I was using it long before they patented invented it. I don't know what should I do without it! Sincerely!

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Cynicism is easy, isn't it?

Yes, and now they're being appropriately cautious.

Yes, and they haven't yet retracted the laughable article.
That kind of behaviour is pretty low in my book.

[Xyzzy]

The one who can't do, teach others to do. The one who can't teach the others either, become leaders.

Dewey Finn: Those that can't do, teach, and those that can't teach... teach gym.

.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

teach gym

Hehe, don't say that! My daughter got a new PE teacher this year, who changed whole my preconception about PE teachers. This guy is dynamite! He really TEACH them, and make them to love sports. He give them home works with research about food (healthy diets), rules about different sports, and they DO IT HAPPILY. I have no idea how he "scare" them. I was really surprised when I heard my daughter has PE homework. I thought I did not understand, and I asked ironically "pee home work? go to the toilet!" like in the "italian to malta" joke, but I was even more surprised when she did nice "sheets" (btw joke, haha) with rules how to play basket or tennis, from the federation's regulation books on the web, and what foods help the boxers/wrestlers to lose/gain weight, etc. In all my life I only had idiots as PE teachers (this is mainly true because under the communist regime I grow up, guys with relations and red booklets used to get a warm chair as PE teachers in schools)...

At the first parents/teachers conference I went to the school and vigorously shook the hand of the guy. Did not tell him why.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Batalov

Yes, and they haven't yet retracted the laughable article.
That kind of behaviour is pretty low in my book.

Is the "laughable article" the one you linked to (and not the original arsenic-living bacteria announcement)?

I don't see why any article (including this and the original) I've seen about this subject needs to be retracted. Retraction is appropriate for articles based on fraud, but I've seen only descriptions of honest mistakes here, not any fraud.

What behavior here do you think is "pretty low"? I don't see any to be ashamed of.

It is really important to publish, not retract, scientific articles that explain honest mistakes, or failures to replicate others' experimental results, for the purpose of educating everyone else!!

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

It is really important to publish, not retract, scientific articles that explain honest mistakes, or failures to replicate others' experimental results, for the purpose of educating everyone else!!

You are entitled to your own opinion. I hope that it is based on extensive experience in publishing and using other people’s publications for your research.
However, it is a standard practice to retract erroneous, poorly supported, irreproducible, inadvertently duplicated articles and not only outright fraudulent ones.
Erroneous and not retracted articles lead to serious setbacks for the other researchers who would take an article for a stepping stone in their research. Irreproducible articles belong to the JIR. Erroneous (honest or not) articles need to be retracted, so that researchers who used and cited that published data would be prompted to review their prerequisites and potentially have to redo their research.

[LaurV]

Well, trying to be neutral, as I understand from reading around, the experiment still continues. So, they have no reason yet to say "sorry, we were wrong". The lady said they are still digging on it. What would you say if next year they really come out with a new bacteria who eats arsenic for breakfast, etc?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Batalov

You are entitled to your own opinion. I hope that it is based on extensive experience in publishing and using other people’s publications for your research.

It's based on more careful reading, reasoning, and familiarity with scientific journals than you seem to have done or experienced in this case.

However, it is a standard practice to retract erroneous, poorly supported, irreproducible, inadvertently duplicated articles and not only outright fraudulent ones.

I never said only fraudulent ones. I never ruled out that there were other reasons.

Erroneous and not retracted articles lead to serious setbacks for the other researchers who would take an article for a stepping stone in their research.

There's a difference between an erroneous article about an accurate experiment and an accurate article about an erroneous experiment.

Did you notice that the article to which you linked with "erroneous" (http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/14/5/402) explained that "After publication of this paper the co-authors noticed a discrepancy between the analyses as described (intention-to-treat analysis) and the analyses as performed (per-protocol analysis), leading to an overestimation of the intervention effects" ? It's quite proper to retract the article in such a case. But that is a type of case I never mentioned or ruled out in my previous post.

However, if the authors had discovered that there was an oversight or omission in their experimental procedure, the proper action would be to publish another article, or addendum to the original article, explaining that oversight or omission (once it was discovered, possibly by someone other than the original authors), so that it would not "lead to serious setbacks for the other researchers who would take an article for a stepping stone in their research" (except such researchers who did not search for or read the corrective addendum).

Irreproducible articles belong to the

JIR

Have you ever actually read that journal? I have.

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Irreproducible_Results

The Journal of Irreproducible Results (JIR) is a magazine of science humor.[1] JIR was founded in Israel in 1955 by virologist Alexander Kohn and physicist Harry J. Lipkin, who wanted a humor magazine about science, for scientists. It contains a unique mix of jokes, satire of scientific practice, science cartoons, and discussion of funny but real research.

Are you seriously citing a deliberately humorous magazine as an example of serious scientific publishing practice with which you would presume to instruct me? (Or did you think that the title of the journal contained all the information you needed to know in order to understand what its content is?)

Originally Posted by Batalov

Erroneous (honest or not) articles need to be retracted, so that researchers who used and cited that published data would be prompted to review their prerequisites and potentially have to redo their research.

The prompting of researchers in such cases could also be usefully triggered by publications of corrections, rather than retractions, depending on the nature of the error as I explained above.