A unique source for peeking behind the curtains at the inner workings of science is Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus’s Retraction Watch. Each day they comb through journals and alert readers to some of the latest research papers that, for one reason or another, a journal has decided to correct or withdraw from publication. In yesterday's posts we learned, for example, that Misuse of data forces retraction of paper on sow’s milk and that Plagiarism leads to retraction of math paper. The reasons given by the journals can be comically opaque and Retraction Watch tries, with a sometimes sardonic touch, to get to the truth of the matter. The best journals take great care in the laborious process of receiving papers, sending them out for review, and eventually publishing those that make the cut. "And yet mistakes happen,” Marcus and Oransky noted in their introductory post.
Sometimes these slips are merely technical, requiring nothing more than an erratum notice calling attention to a backwards figure or an incorrect address for reprints. Less often but far more important are the times when the blunders require that an entire article be pulled. . . . Retractions are born of many mothers. Fraud is the most titillating reason, and mercifully the most rare, but when it happens the results can be devastating.
