"Compromised science" news/opines (includes retractions, declining academic standards, pred-J, etc)

Perhaps a not altogether surprising follow-up at Big Think... ;)
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Does science reveal the absolute truth about reality?
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/science-absolute-truth/

KEY POINTS: In order for a hypothesis, idea, or even a fact or law to become a scientific truth, it must clear an immense standard of evidence and pass a series of scrutinous tests to get there. But what we call a “scientific truth” is very different from our colloquial idea of true vs. false or right vs. wrong. Although science always seeks the truth, none of its conclusions can ever be considered absolute. Nevertheless, despite this limitation, it’s the best guide to reality that we have... (MORE - details)

New study debunks the myth of truly “egalitarian” societies in human history
https://thedebrief.org/new-study-debunks-the-myth-of-truly-egalitarian-societies-in-human-history/

INTRO: For generations, popular imagination and fiction have often cast hunter-gatherer societies as humanity’s original egalitarian utopia—a realm free of wealth, hierarchy, and dominance, where people cooperated effortlessly, and power was evenly spread.

However, a new empirical study argues that this long-standing narrative, while appealing, is deeply misleading. In fact, researchers show that even the world’s most iconic “egalitarian” societies are far more unequal—and far more complex—than myths portray... (MORE - details])

RELATED: Inequalities exist in even the most egalitarian societies, anthropologists find

With respect to the below, obviously it may depend on one's own political and ethical orientation whether the regulatory presence or absence of evolving hues of positive discrimination (and its promotion) in both government and institutional administrations is or good bad. I.e., to maintain the old status quo or strive for socioeconomic utopia. As well, both crusades to implement an _X_ and remove that _X_ can often entail deceptive political facades (i.e., the "new remedy slash boss" might be worse than the old).
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How we cured DEI at the National Institutes of Health
https://thespectator.com/topic/cured-dei-national-institutes-health-jay-bhattacharya-matthew-memoli/

EXCERPTS: For its entire history NIH funding decisions were made to reach scientific goals. DEI drove decisions to be made to reach political goals instead, requiring NIH scientists to write DEI statements – de facto loyalty oaths – and researchers outside the NIH applying for grants to write plans for enhancing “diverse perspectives” (another name for a DEI statement). Scientific reviewers were chosen based on DEI criteria, and those making funding decisions received bonuses for promoting DEI.

[...] In 2022, the NIH announced funding for universities to conduct “system-wide” DEI audits to address “shortcomings” in addressing “structural racism.” [...] NIH policy was fundamental in the DEI-ification of the nation’s top universities and research centers. ... Most scientists obsequiously complied to avoid the risk of career harm, whether they were true believers or not.

[...] Because DEI was so deeply embedded in the NIH’s portfolio, it will take some time to complete the work, but by the end of this fiscal year, we will have restored merit and science-based research to their rightful place at the NIH.

[...] We continue to enthusiastically support research that advances the health of all Americans, regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, or other characteristics... (MORE- details)
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C C said:
We continue to enthusiastically support research that advances the health of all Americans, regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, or other characteristics
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Can't. Even. Begin. To describe the utter ignorance of this statement. THE WHOLE POINT OF MANY HEALTHCARE ADVANCES is developing knowledge about the specific health needs of various groups and ethnicities, how they may have certain genetic tendencies towards specific illnesses and respond to environmental effects and nutrients differently and respond to drugs and dosages differently. The way to advance the health of all Americans is to support research on how we are not all carbon copies of one generic human and thus have different clinical needs. We ARE diverse, you fucking MAGA imbeciles.
 
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Journal removes funding statement from hormone therapy paper without issuing correction
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12...one-therapy-paper-without-issuing-correction/

A Cell Press journal quietly removed part of a funding statement from a paper related to gender-affirming hormone therapy that the authors say was included in error. Experts called the move “worrying.”

COPE’s involvement leads to retraction of paper on homeopathy for lung cancer
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12...ction-of-paper-on-homeopathy-for-lung-cancer/

A journal that last year corrected a paper claiming to show a homeopathic intervention improved quality of life and survival for people with advanced lung cancer has now retracted the article after the Committee on Publication Ethics got involved in the case....

One of Kazakhstan’s top nuclear physicists also leads his nation in retractions
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12...sicists-also-leads-his-nation-in-retractions/

The head of a nuclear physics institute in Kazakhstan now has 21 retractions to his name — most of them logged in the past year — following dozens of his papers being flagged on PubPeer for data reuse and images showing suspiciously similar patterns of background noise, suggesting manipulation....

How to juice your Google Scholar h-index, preprint by preprint
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12...-google-scholar-h-index-preprint-by-preprint/

But another researcher smelled a rat and took a closer look at Yousaf’s publications. [...] “Many of these documents appear to be low quality, as evidenced by their lack of coherence and technical quality,” the concerned researcher, who asked to remain anonymous, said of the preprints in an email to TechRxiv last December....
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Exclusive: Springer Nature retracts, removes nearly 40 publications that trained neural networks on ‘bonkers’ dataset
https://www.thetransmitter.org/retr...t-trained-neural-networks-on-bonkers-dataset/

The dataset contains images of children’s faces downloaded from websites about autism, which sparked concerns at Springer Nature about consent and reliability...

A new preprint server welcomes papers written and reviewed by AI
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-preprint-server-welcomes-papers-written-and-reviewed-ai

With human peer review struggling to keep pace with machine-generated science, aiXiv enlists bots to help...

Should Australia establish an independent body to investigate scientific misconduct? We asked 5 experts
https://theconversation.com/should-...ientific-misconduct-we-asked-5-experts-270460

Should Australia follow the approach of its international peers and establish an independent body that has the power to investigate scientific misconduct cases? We asked five experts. Three answered yes. Even the two who answered no said Australia could do more to protect research integrity...

The hidden ethics crisis in Australian health research funding
https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2025...crisis-in-australian-health-research-funding/

Australia’s health and medical research sector is a global leader in innovation and discovery. Yet, a hidden ethical problem in how research grants are funded threatens to undermine this reputation and the researchers it relies on. The issue centres on an obscure detail in grant applications: how researcher salaries are costed. This seemingly technical matter has profound implications for professional integrity, workloads, workforce sustainability, research quality, and how we advance health and healthcare in Australia....
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Academic Publishing Is Not Fit for the Future – If We Don’t Act Now, The Vital Role Research Plays in Society Is at Risk
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org...al-role-research-plays-in-society-is-at-risk/

EXCERPT: The need for high-quality research has never been greater. Global investment in research continues to grow as nations seek to accelerate solutions to challenges from climate change to global health crises. In an age of misinformation, academic publishing plays an increasingly vital role in ensuring this knowledge reaches and benefits communities worldwide.

Yet that system is now reaching a breaking point. Unless we redesign it, we risk stalling the very progress we seek – with consequences impacting research, education and public trust in academia.... (MORE - details)

The Library and the Database: Contrasting Expectations in Two Imaginaries for the Research Literature
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-025-09618-7

EXCERPT: Retractions offer interesting examples of the imaginaries’ contrasting implications for knowledge curation. A retraction removes a contribution from the literature because it is somehow problematic: fraudulent, fatally erroneous, or ethically flawed. Removing texts for these reasons runs against the grain of the library logic: one does not burn a book for being questionable.

Although some journals have removed articles entirely from their websites, good practice recommended by COPE is to maintain availability of publications, but to mark them very clearly, such as with a red stamp ‘RETRACTED’ across the pdf and in the meta-data picked up by indexing services (via Crossref). If the literature is like a library, refuted publications should indeed be kept, but defacing books with a red stamp across every page is not de rigueur and painfully awkward. (Although historic examples of censorship and banned books abound.)

Even more radical examples in the spirit of the database are papers retracted by their author for no other reason than that the findings were refuted or replaced by new insights, based on more advanced analysis or reinterpretations of existing work (e.g. ‘SOGC Guideline Retirement Notice No. 1’ 2022; Zhao et al. 2021). In a library logic, refuted works would not be removed, but lead to commentary, a reply, another publication, or they simply get ignored and thereby disappear from the active body of knowledge. If not ignored, refuted works form the start of a conversation, rather than an attempt to pre-emptively close it... (MORE - details)
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Most peer reviewers now use AI, and publishing policy must keep pace
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1109826

INTRO: A new whitepaper from Frontiers shows that AI has rapidly become part of everyday peer review, with 53% of reviewers now using AI tools. The findings in Unlocking AI’s untapped potential: responsible innovation in research and publishing point to a pivotal moment for research publishing. Adoption is accelerating and the opportunity now is to translate this momentum into stronger, more transparent, and more equitable research practices as demonstrated in Frontiers’ policy outlines.

Drawing on insights from 1,645 active researchers worldwide, the whitepaper identifies a global community eager to use AI confidently and responsibly. While many reviewers currently rely on AI for drafting reports or summarizing findings, the report highlights significant untapped potential for AI to support rigor, reproducibility, and deeper methodological insight... (MORE - details, no ads)
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C C said:
Most peer reviewers now use AI, and publishing policy must keep pace
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1109826

INTRO: A new whitepaper from Frontiers shows that AI has rapidly become part of everyday peer review, with 53% of reviewers now using AI tools. The findings in Unlocking AI’s untapped potential: responsible innovation in research and publishing point to a pivotal moment for research publishing. Adoption is accelerating and the opportunity now is to translate this momentum into stronger, more transparent, and more equitable research practices as demonstrated in Frontiers’ policy outlines.

Drawing on insights from 1,645 active researchers worldwide, the whitepaper identifies a global community eager to use AI confidently and responsibly. While many reviewers currently rely on AI for drafting reports or summarizing findings, the report highlights significant untapped potential for AI to support rigor, reproducibility, and deeper methodological insight... (MORE - details, no ads)
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Frontiers seems to be pretty shit. It was even on Beall’s list at one stage.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontiers_Media

So what they do is not likely to be a guide to good practice.
 
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exchemist said:
Frontiers seems to be pretty shit. It was even on Beall’s list at one stage.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontiers_Media

So what they do is not likely to be a guide to good practice.
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Unfortunately, it's one instance where I wouldn't be surprised about a Retraction Watch "favorite target" getting it right about the practice increasing, even in non-predatory circles.
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And now Nature echoes the Frontiers survey.
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More than half of researchers now use AI for peer review — often against guidance
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04066-5

EXCERPTS: More than 50% of researchers have used artificial intelligence while peer reviewing manuscripts [...] “It’s good to confront the reality that people are using AI in peer-review tasks,” says Elena Vicario, Frontiers’ director of research integrity. But the poll suggests that researchers are using AI in peer review “in contrast with a lot of external recommendations of not uploading manuscripts to third-party tools”, she adds.

Some publishers, including Frontiers, allow limited use of AI in peer review, but require reviewers to disclose it. Like most other publishers, Frontiers forbids reviewers from uploading unpublished manuscripts to chatbot websites because of concerns about confidentiality, sensitive data and compromising authors’ intellectual property.

The survey report calls on publishers to respond to the growing use of AI across scientific publishing and implement policies that are better suited to the ‘new reality’. Frontiers itself has launched an in-house AI platform for peer reviewers across all of its journals. “AI should be used in peer review responsibly, with very clear guides, with human accountability and with the right training,” says Vicario... (MORE - details)
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AI slop is spurring record requests for imaginary journals
https://www.icrc.org/en/article/important-notice-ai-generated-archival-references

INTRO: Never heard of the Journal of International Relief or the International Humanitarian Digital Repository? That’s because they don’t exist. But that’s not stopping some of the world’s most popular artificial intelligence models from sending users looking for records such as these, according to a new International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) statement... (MORE - details)

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Safeguarding Open Science from exploitative practices
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004851

INTRO: The advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and its ability to create fake data, images and text represents an unprecedented challenge to the integrity of the scientific literature. Data transparency through Open Science acts as a crucial safeguard against such fraudulent or unethical activity, providing an auditable trail of evidence. This is in addition to other Open Science benefits, such as equitable data access and improved reproducibility of research.

There is, however, a fundamental and circular problem with making scientific data freely available as a defence against AI-generated fraud or other unethical behaviours: Datasets are themselves the fuel for AI engines. In other words, the very measures designed to fight fraud (open access) simultaneously power new forms of problematic activities (GenAI-assisted fast churn science). Robust evidence is emerging that open access datasets, especially in health and medicine, are being exploited in this way by paper mills and other bad actors... (MORE - details)
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China’s research paper boom could be a ‘false prosperity’, academician warns
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/sci...m-could-be-false-prosperity-academician-warns

INTRO: A top scientist has sharply criticised China’s increasingly resource-driven research culture, warning that a reliance on vast accumulated funding, manpower and data for scientific output is inefficient and actively undermines genuine innovation.

Zhang Hong, a senior cell biologist at the Institute of Biophysics in Beijing and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, condemned what he called “a vicious cycle” in how life sciences research was increasingly done in China.

Projects were inflated for scale, engineered to land in elite journals and then cashed in for titles and even greater resources, he told science communication outlet The Intellectual in an article it posted to its social media account on Monday. “You often hear people boasting about publishing a paper that costs tens of millions of yuan in a top journal like Science, Nature or Cell. What they’re really showing off is how many resources they control,” Zhang said... (MORE - details)

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How recent is recent? Retrospective analysis of suspiciously timeless citations.
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj-2025-086941

(ABSTRACT) Objective: To quantify the time lag between biomedical articles and the studies they describe as “recent,” a term widely used to imply timeliness despite rarely reflecting the actual age of the cited evidence.

Design: Retrospective analysis of suspiciously timeless citations based on a structured PubMed search of 20 predefined “recent” expressions.

Sample: 1000 English language, full text biomedical articles in which a “recent” expression is directly linked to a citation.

Main outcome measure: Time lag in years between citing articles and their referenced “recent” studies.

Results: The age of the cited “recent” studies varied widely. The citation lag ranged from 0 to 37 years (mean 5.53 years, median 4 years, interquartile range 2-7). The most frequent lag was one year (n=159, 15.9%), and 177 references (17.7%) were at least 10 years old. Citation patterns varied across medical specialties: critical care, infectious diseases, genetics, immunology, and radiology showed shorter median lags (around two years), while nephrology, veterinary medicine, and dentistry displayed substantially longer lags (ranging from 8.5 to 14 years). Among expressions, “recent approach,” “recent discovery,” and “recent study” were linked to older references, whereas “recent publication” and “recent article” had much fresher citations. The citation lag was similar across world regions and gradually decreased over time, with the most recent publications showing the shortest lags. Journals with high impact factors (≥12) cited more up-to-date work.

Conclusions: This playful analysis suggests that “recent” is applied with striking elasticity across biomedical literature. While some authors cite genuinely recent work, others stretch the definition to decades. Readers and reviewers should take “recent” claims with a grain of chronological salt... (MORE - details)
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As if the human-centered sciences were not unreliable enough via their usual invalid science problems. Now it's divulged that even their most lofty practitioners can dabble in outright fiction.

Since storytelling is a key component of CRT and other critical theory offshoots, it is not inconsistent for Horgan -- as a past defender of the former Scientific American regime's political tinkering in that area -- to seemingly be excusing Sacks' "fudging".

#Overview: "Critics have raised concerns about critical theory's reliance on Marxist revisionism and its frequent emphasis on subjective narratives, which can sometimes be at odds with empirical methodologies."
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Oliver Sacks Fudged Facts. Does That Bother Me?
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/oliver-sacks-fudged-facts-does-that-bother-me

EXCERPT: Oliver Sacks made up details of his stories about patients with brain disorders, Rachel Aviv reports in the December 15 New Yorker. Does this revelation diminish my admiration for the neurologist/author? Before I answer this question, a quick history of my interactions with Sacks... (MORE - details)

The man who mistook his imagination for the truth
https://mariakonnikova.substack.com/p/the-man-who-mistook-his-imagination

EXCERPT: On December 8, Rachel Aviv, a brilliant New Yorker staff writer, published an exposé of sorts about Sacks and his work: the good doctor, it turns out, was prone to invention, with details peppering his work that were, in his own words, “pure fabrications.” The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, that paragon of scientific writing that I had held as my beacon? Sacks referred to it in his diaries as a collection of “fairy tales.” Here’s what he wrote about the chapters that I’d spent so long studying:

“[T]hese odd Narratives-half-report, half-imagined, half-science, half-fable, but with a fidelity of their own-are what I do, basically, to keep MY demons of boredom and loneliness and despair away.”

Or, to put it in other terms, the reason his nonfiction read like fiction was because it was, in actuality, fiction. What was billed as a factual accounting of the neurological workings of Sacks’s patients was, in reality, a therapeutic catharsis for the doctor himself... (MORE - details)
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C C said:
As if the human-centered sciences were not unreliable enough via their usual invalid science problems. Now it's divulged that even their most lofty practitioners can dabble in outright fiction.

Since storytelling is a key component of CRT and other critical theory offshoots, it is not inconsistent for Horgan -- as a past defender of the former Scientific American regime's political tinkering in that area -- to seemingly be excusing Sacks' "fudging".

#Overview: "Critics have raised concerns about critical theory's reliance on Marxist revisionism and its frequent emphasis on subjective narratives, which can sometimes be at odds with empirical methodologies."
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Oliver Sacks Fudged Facts. Does That Bother Me?
https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/oliver-sacks-fudged-facts-does-that-bother-me

EXCERPT: Oliver Sacks made up details of his stories about patients with brain disorders, Rachel Aviv reports in the December 15 New Yorker. Does this revelation diminish my admiration for the neurologist/author? Before I answer this question, a quick history of my interactions with Sacks... (MORE - details)

The man who mistook his imagination for the truth
https://mariakonnikova.substack.com/p/the-man-who-mistook-his-imagination

EXCERPT: On December 8, Rachel Aviv, a brilliant New Yorker staff writer, published an exposé of sorts about Sacks and his work: the good doctor, it turns out, was prone to invention, with details peppering his work that were, in his own words, “pure fabrications.” The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, that paragon of scientific writing that I had held as my beacon? Sacks referred to it in his diaries as a collection of “fairy tales.” Here’s what he wrote about the chapters that I’d spent so long studying:

“[T]hese odd Narratives-half-report, half-imagined, half-science, half-fable, but with a fidelity of their own-are what I do, basically, to keep MY demons of boredom and loneliness and despair away.”

Or, to put it in other terms, the reason his nonfiction read like fiction was because it was, in actuality, fiction. What was billed as a factual accounting of the neurological workings of Sacks’s patients was, in reality, a therapeutic catharsis for the doctor himself... (MORE - details)
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This about Sacks is pretty shocking. And I find Horgan’s apologia for him evasive and misleading. OK, the Sacks had his own demons in his psyche to exorcise, but that does not excuse passing of invention as fact, especially when you a prominent member of what claims to be a scientific profession.

It seems to me Horgan can’t have it both ways. Either Sacks is a charlatan or Horgan is saying neurology is not a real science. (One of my brothers is a retired consultant neurologist. I must ask him about this.)
 
The value of publishing negative data
https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/38829-the-value-of-publishing-negative-data/

INTRO: Scientific journals love news-worthy results. Editors want to publish studies with novel data that scientists will eagerly read and cite in their own work.

Because of this desire for novelty, studies that share null or negative results—disproving a hypothesis rather than confirming a novel finding—can be very hard to publish, and scientists often lack motivation to even write up such results. This dynamic has led to an overall publication bias against negative results across scientific journals.

Yet there are many positives to publishing the negative, says Tim Fessenden, executive editor of Life Science Alliance, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal from Rockefeller University Press. Here, Fessenden shares his insider perspective on why and how the scientific community should actively encourage the publication of negative results... (MORE - details)

PATHWAYS TRIAL
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/pathways-trial

-intro- PATHWAYS TRIAL is a research study that will explore how puberty suppressing hormones (medicines that pause puberty) impact the physical, social, and emotional wellbeing of young people with gender incongruence. Right now, there isn’t enough information about the possible benefits or risks that young people with gender incongruence may experience when taking puberty suppressing hormones. PATHWAYS TRIAL aims to help fill this gap in the evidence about what we know... (MORE - details)
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“This is why the PATHWAYS TRIAL is necessary”: experts respond to mounting opposition
https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2660

EXCERPTS: But the trial, which has approval from a research ethics committee and regulatory approval from the Health Research Authority (HRA) and the Medicines Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), faces criticism...

[...] Against the backdrop of protest and unease, the trial’s chief investigator, Emily Simonoff, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at King’s College London, is now in the unenviable position of figurehead of one of the most controversial clinical trials in recent history.

Simonoff and Hilary Cass spoke with The BMJ to respond to criticism, before threats to launch legal action to halt the trial were made.... (MORE - details)
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AI Is Inventing academic papers that don’t exist — And they’re being cited in real journals
https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...t-journal-research-fake-citations-1235485484/

The proliferation of references to fake articles threatens to undermine the legitimacy of institutional research across the board...

The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker now has 400 entries
https://retractionwatch.com/2025/12...hijacked-journal-checker-now-has-400-entries/

Sham journals that mimic real ones can fool unsuspecting authors who are submitting a manuscript, researchers looking for references for papers — and even indexing services aiming to be comprehensive in their coverage. For three years, researcher and sleuth Anna Abalkina has been tracking these clones in the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker...
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The uncertain future of international scientific collaboration
https://undark.org/2026/01/01/opinion-international-collaboration-trump/

The sky is not falling quite yet. Science will live on, and people will still work on important projects with others around the globe. But, as we’ve seen in various other attacks against science in recent years, the scientific community must take the threats against it seriously before it’s too late....
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A bibliography of generative-AI fueled research fraud from 2025
https://sharonkabel.com/genai-fraud

INTRO: Have you ever thought to yourself, “Boy, I hate all of these stupid AI tools and bots and add-ons. I wish I had a bibliography with 50 carefully arranged references, each one showing a different way AI is making everything worse, perhaps with selected quotations from each reference“?

Do I have good news for you. I’m a research librarian, with the bulk of my experience being in biomedical literature. Here is a simplified, incomplete sketch of how scientific research gets published... (MORE - details)

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Scientific integrity in the age of generative AI
https://politicstoday.org/scientific-integrity-in-the-age-of-generative-ai/

EXCERPTS: Human history is witnessing one of the most radical breaking points in the production and dissemination of knowledge. [...] Human intelligence is no longer alone in laboratories, libraries, and at desks; it is joined by a silicon-based partner whose capacity increases by the day, which never tires, and which can at times be dangerously convincing.

[...] The nature of the scientific production process is confronted with an epistemological dilemma. [...] Looking at the global scale, it is evident that the reactions to this technological tsunami present a fragmented structure based on geopolitical and cultural priorities. The world has not yet been able to establish a common language regarding AI governance... (MORE - details)

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Put pressure on publishers to follow best practice — external regulation is the answer
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-04099-w

EXCERPT: There’s nothing like knowing that an inspector could show up unannounced to focus people on safety standards. Yet, one area of science is strangely devoid of independent checks — academic publishing.

In my view, external oversight could push journals and publishers to work harder to reduce integrity issues that are harming the scientific literature. These range from a lack of timely corrections and retractions for faulty papers, to a flood of manuscripts produced by artificial intelligence and paper-mill businesses that churn out fake or low-quality papers and sell authorships.

I propose that academic journals submit to independent regulation through an international quality-management standard, known as ISO 9001... (MORE - details)

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Reflecting on yet another year of scientific fraud at the University of Minnesota
https://www.startribune.com/umn-professors-fabrication-plagiarism-scandals/601554124

EXCERPT: One might imagine that a string of scandals like this would trigger some institutional soul-searching. Yet each episode has come and gone with barely a flicker of concern, much less alarm. There has been no public outrage, no faculty protests, no lawmakers demanding reform. In fact, just the opposite: The university has announced that the administrator in charge of “research integrity” since 2024, Joanne Billings, will be promoted to interim vice president for research and innovation.

Is anyone surprised? Last year in San Francisco I met with a veteran investigative health reporter whose work has made him very familiar with the U. He told me that while many institutions have to deal with medical misconduct, the University of Minnesota is part of a small club of universities where fraud and abuses happen so often that scandals simply come to be expected. He wondered if I had any idea why.

It starts with the way that the administration deals with misconduct... (MORE - details)
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The 5 stages of the ‘enshittification’ of academic publishing
https://theconversation.com/the-5-stages-of-the-enshittification-of-academic-publishing-269714

EXCERPTS: When writer Cory Doctorow introduced the term enshittification in 2023, he captured a pattern many users had already noticed in their personal lives. [...] But our recent research, published in Organization, shows that enshittification isn’t just confined to the online world. In fact, it’s now visible in academic publishing and occurs in five stages. The same forces that hollow out digital platforms are shaping how a lot of research is produced, reviewed and published... (MORE - details)

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Science keeps changing. So why should we trust it?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/...e_code=1.ClA.oiQ0.o8uODEjK4Und&smid=url-share

EXCERPTS: As popular mistrust of expert opinion grows, we increasingly encounter the following skeptical argument about science: Historically, even well-established theories and findings have been overturned; therefore, science can’t be trusted because it will eventually change again.

[...] It’s a sobering question but also a misleading one. It implies that the only possible attitudes toward science are naïve faith and wholesale pessimism. It assumes that science is a single global entity that rises or falls all at once, when in reality, science is an array of local domains of inquiry, each with its own standards of evidence and degrees of reliability... (MORE - details)

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Ideological bias in the production of research findings
https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adz7173

ABSTRACT: When studying policy-relevant topics, researchers’ policy preferences may shape analytical decisions and results interpretations. Detecting this bias is challenging because the research process is not normally part of an observed experimental setting.

Our study exploits an opportunity to observe 158 researchers working independently in 71 teams during an experiment. After being asked their position on immigration policy, they used the same data to answer the same empirical question: Does immigration affect public support for social welfare programs?

The researchers estimated 1253 alternative regression models, and the estimated impacts ranged from strongly negative to strongly positive. We find that teams composed of pro-immigration researchers estimated more positive impacts of immigration on public support for social programs, while anti-immigration teams estimated more negative impacts.

The differences arise because different teams adopted different model specifications. The underlying research design decisions are the mechanism through which ideology enters the process of producing parameter estimates... (MORE - details)
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No surprise at all with respect to the social or "human-central" sciences. Not only with respect to how the data is interpreted by antecedent preferences, but how the research itself may be set up.
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Why do researchers commit misconduct?
https://www.researchinformation.info/viewpoint/why-do-researchers-commit-misconduct/

EXCERPT: Science doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it is part of a system shaped by ambition and competition. This system often rewards speed and productivity – the number of funding wins, the volume of published research papers, and citation metrics – these are regarded as parameters of success. In an environment where the result of years of work is subject to metrics, scientists may feel the pressure to bend the rules. To understand why misconduct happens, we need to look at how systemic pressures and subsequent rewards shape how researchers work... (MORE - details)

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In Memoriam: The Academic Journal
https://arxiv.org/html/2512.23915v1

EXCERPTS: In this piece we reflect on the life and influence of AJ, the academic journal, charting their history and contributions to science, discussing how their influence changed society and how, in death, they will be mourned for what they once stood for but for which, in the end, they had moved so far from that they will be less missed than they might have been.

[...] And thus AJ entered the end-stage of life. No longer could people rely on the content, because the cost of creating fake material was so low, and the benefits so high. Now an academic could possibly publish half a dozen articles in a year, mostly because they could submit a hundred and hope a few got through. AJ couldn’t adapt - suddenly, their free raw material became mostly worthless, and the free processing they had relied on became worthless too, overwhelmed by quantity and plausible but uncheckable content... (MORE - details)
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Peer review needs a revolution. AI is already driving it
https://scholarlyfutures.substack.com/p/peer-review-needs-a-revolution-ai

INTRO: Imagine an article about peer review that didn’t follow the usual tropes. One that didn’t open with the quote that like democracy it is imperfect, but the best system we have. It wouldn’t close summarising that until a better system is found, we would do well to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

I’m confident that this audience is aware of the flaws of peer review, and the many challenges it has faced since its broad adoption in the 1960s. My focus here will be current issues, and how AI could change the picture. Unsurprisingly, I conclude that it could both help and hinder and governance and transparency are critical... (MORE - details)

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Criminalisation of fraud and misconduct in clinical trials on medicinal products (PDF)
https://www.wiadomoscilekarskie.pl/pdf-214796-133888?filename=Criminalisation-of-fraud-.pdf

ABSTRACT: The aim is to develop a scientifically grounded approach to defining the basis and limits of criminalizing fraud and misconduct in clinical trials of medicinal products, while also raising awareness and encouraging serious discussion of these issues.

Materials and Methods: The study relies on the Acquis Communautaire and the legislation of Ukraine, Germany, and Poland. It also uses judicial practices from the United States, France, and Ukraine, as well as legal statistics and draft legislation from Ukraine.

Scientific research methods such as induction, deduction, comparison, analysis, case studies, and systems analysis were employed.

Conclusions: Criminal penalties for unlawful actions during clinical trials of medicinal products, guided by the ultima ratio principle, should be applied only to violations that threaten the lives or health of research subjects, infringe upon their rights, or involve falsification of clinical trial results regarding the effica and safety of the products, rather than to any violations alone... (MORE - details)

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Renaming the problem: Why ‘non-recommended journals’ is preferable to ‘predatory’ in academic publishing
https://www.barwmedical.com/index.php/BMJ/article/view/213

ABSTRACT: The term "predatory journals" is widely used to describe publishing practices that exploit authors, compromise research quality, and mislead readers. Its use, however, has frequently led to legal threats and professional conflicts for individuals and institutions who call out such deceptive practices.

Most notably, Jeffrey Beall, the creator of Beall’s List, faced legal threats and personal harassment, which ultimately led him to discontinue his work. To address these challenges, scholars have proposed replacing “predatory journals” with more neutral alternatives, such as “questionable journals”.

This study recommends using the term “non-recommended journals,” which similarly avoids accusatory language while signaling the need for caution by scholars and institutions. By avoiding direct allegations of unethical conduct, the term "non-recommended" reduces the likelihood of legal repercussions and professional disputes.

Adopting this terminology enables researchers and institutions to continue addressing concerns about low-quality or deceptive publishing practices while fostering a more constructive dialogue. This reframing encourages constructive dialogue, broader institutional engagement, and stronger collective efforts to uphold high ethical publishing standards and protect academic integrity... (MORE - details)
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