Sanctity of the scientific record
Creators & Contributors
I have not read the chemical blogosphere for some time (other than Blue Obelisk) and have been catching up with some of this in the plane. This is ChemBark from January and some my specific comments may be out of date, but the general questions remain. Scholars of scientific accuracy/fraud may wish to pursue the posts (which are IMO a valuable addition to the formal review process).
=== ChemBark ==
Interesting…
Posted by Paul on January 11th, 2007
I haven't read this in detail so have no idea whether the question of scientific fraud has been resolved. My concern is about the scholarly record. On pursuing the links I find the correction/retraction:
Direct Palladium-Catalyzed C-2 and C-3 Arylation of Indoles: A Mechanistic Rationale for Regioselectivity [J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 8050-8057].
Benjamin S. Lane, Meghann A. Brown, and Dalibor Sames*
For comparison purposes, this article refers to a palladium-catalyzed arylation of free azoles in the presence of magnesium oxide, published previously in a separate communication. Although the magnesium oxide procedure has recently been found irreproducible (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 8364), this fact does not affect the conclusions of this paper. Consequently, the magnesium oxide protocol has been removed from the Supporting Information. Also, Figures S5 and S8 have been replaced with corrected versions.
Supporting Information Available
Experimental procedures, spectral data, and base optimization data (corrected). This material is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.01/03/2007
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I make now comment on the question of misconduct, but am concerned with the sanctity of the scientific record. The publishers' statement could be interpreted as implying that the record has been amended, rather than that an amended piece of information has been added to the scientific record. The blogosphere certainly queried this – I don't know whether it has been resolved.
However the ACS policy on journals is then worrying:
"Socialized Science" (ACS[*] commentary on NIH)
RUDY M. BAUM, Editor-in-Chief, C&E News,
September 20 2004 Volume 82, Number 38 p. 7
I find it incredible that a Republican Administration would institute a policy that will have the long-term effect of shifting responsibility for communicating scientific research and maintaining the archive of STM [1] literature from the private sector to the federal government.
[…] one important consequence of electronic publishing is to shift primary responsibility for maintaining the archive of STM literature from libraries to publishers. I know that publishers like the American Chemical Society are committed to maintaining the archive of material they publish. Maintaining an archive, however, costs money.
(PM-R's emphasis and ellipses)
[*] American Chemical Society
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The scientific record is thus not a paper or even epaper journal – it is a set of database records. With paper journals the record was very clearly preseved – mutliple copies were distributed and could never be recalled. Here there is effectively only one record and it is controlled by the publisher. (I know that certain depositing libraries have electronic copies, but it is unrealistic for the average scientist to pursue this).
I don't doubt that Rudy Baum has a sincere commitment to preserving the scientific record. But I can imagine cases – with less reputable publishers – where it was embarassing to the publisher for the record to be visible and it was convenient for the database to be amended.
There is another point which the chemical community should take seriously if it cares about the accuracy of scientific publications – and certainly the blogosphere does. ChemBark says that it is impossible to check by eye whether the copies are identical or what has been changed. I gather that there might be PDF diff tools but I don't have one. OTOH if the supporting information were in CML then it would be possible to compare not only the text but also the spectra, compounds, etc.
So I'd like to be sure that the complete record is available. And encourage chemical cows rather than chemical hamburgers
The publisher states that figures in the supporting information have been replaced. There is some doubt in the blogosphere as to whether an amended copy of the supporting information was added to the scientific record or whether the record itself was changed. If it is the latter then it is very serious. The ACS policy is:
Additional details
Description
I have not read the chemical blogosphere for some time (other than Blue Obelisk) and have been catching up with some of this in the plane. This is ChemBark from January and some my specific comments may be out of date, but the general questions remain.
Identifiers
- GUID
- https://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/?p=269
- URL
- https://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2007/04/27/sanctity-of-the-scientific-record/
Dates
- Issued
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2007-04-27T16:16:00Z
- Updated
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2007-04-27T16:16:00Z