4 ms·

Prolific autism researcher has two dozen papers retracted

52 points by mzs 4y ago

garyfirestorm 4y ago
It took this long?
tomodachi94 4y ago
Johnny Matson[0] (the researcher in question) has about 16 different articles[1] that have been retracted for conflict of interest, according to Retraction Watch[2][3]. I'm not entirely sure about which of these articles the submission is talking about. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Matson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Matson [1]: http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1#?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport%3d1%26auth%3dMatson%252c%2bJohnny%2bL http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?AspxAuto... [2]: https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/ https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-g... [3]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retraction_Watch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retraction_Watch
vba616 4y ago
The takeaway is not clear to me. This implies it doesn't really matter that much: ` “I doubt that he’s fraudulent,” Bishop says of Matson. “I think it’s just this factory for churning out fairly trivial papers.” ' It raises the question in my mind whether this guy (who I never heard of before) has had any significant influence on the proliferation of autism or autism spectrum diagnoses in recent years?
gs17 4y ago
> Elsevier included the same explanation in 23 of the 24 retractions, saying the papers were being retracted because they “did not include a declaration of a conflict of interest of one author in relation to diagnostic tools which the paper endorses.” The statement also says that the same author was editor-in-chief of the journal at the time of publication, and that there was no evidence of independent peer review by external reviewers. One paper was not cited for a conflict of interest but instead was retracted for “lack of original methodology,” along with the same peer-review issue.
jfengel 4y ago
Is it appropriate to retract a paper when the primary flaw is a failure to disclose conflicts of interest? It's certainly an unethical thing to do, and with dozens of them it's clearly not an accident, but would it be acceptable to amend the papers with the relevant declarations? The impression I get is that this is somebody who does at least somewhat valuable work while also unethically self-dealing. It would be too bad if the valuable part were lost. The papers are highly cited (unless that's just the effect of the self-citations). I'd have expected that work that cites a paper would have at least some chance of catching outright errors, though I know that the "softer" the field is the less likely that is. It sounds as if there is more going on, that the papers are untrustworthy. Perhaps they wouldn't have passed peer review if the declaration had been included.
- stonogo 4y ago
  We have no way to know what is valuable in these papers, because the author was the journal editor and skipped the peer review process entirely.
  - culopatin 4y ago
    Also who’s to edit the paper? People would have to redo the research for him to verify the results with different tooling.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Peer review doesn't do much at all to ensure the papers have merit.
    - stonogo 4y ago
      Not doing much at all is a damn sight better than doing nothing, which appears to have been the case here.
      - s1artibartfast 4y ago
        Peer review does not look at data integrity, and rarely looks at methods. Studies have been done that show that peer review only catches something as gross as improper participant randomization 50% of the time, and finer details less often. At a higher level, the purpose of peer review is to determine if the results of a paper are prestigious enough to be included in a journal and should not be construed to impart validity. My personal opinion is that more people shouldn't move towards self-publishing and drop the facade of Journal peer review all together.
water-data-dude 4y ago
The article only cursorily mentions what is, to me, the most glaring flaw in their work. “Baby and Infant Screen for Children with Autism Traits” to “BISCUIT” is a criminally bad acronym.

52 points by mzs 4y ago

It took this long?

Johnny Matson[0] (the researcher in question) has about 16 different articles[1] that have been retracted for conflict of interest, according to Retraction Watch[2][3]. I'm not entirely sure about which of these articles the submission is talking about. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Matson https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Matson [1]: http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1#?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport%3d1%26auth%3dMatson%252c%2bJohnny%2bL http://retractiondatabase.org/RetractionSearch.aspx?AspxAuto... [2]: https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-guide/ https://retractionwatch.com/retraction-watch-database-user-g... [3]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retraction_Watch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retraction_Watch

vba616 4y ago

The takeaway is not clear to me. This implies it doesn't really matter that much: ` “I doubt that he’s fraudulent,” Bishop says of Matson. “I think it’s just this factory for churning out fairly trivial papers.” ' It raises the question in my mind whether this guy (who I never heard of before) has had any significant influence on the proliferation of autism or autism spectrum diagnoses in recent years?

gs17 4y ago

> Elsevier included the same explanation in 23 of the 24 retractions, saying the papers were being retracted because they “did not include a declaration of a conflict of interest of one author in relation to diagnostic tools which the paper endorses.” The statement also says that the same author was editor-in-chief of the journal at the time of publication, and that there was no evidence of independent peer review by external reviewers. One paper was not cited for a conflict of interest but instead was retracted for “lack of original methodology,” along with the same peer-review issue.

jfengel 4y ago

Is it appropriate to retract a paper when the primary flaw is a failure to disclose conflicts of interest? It's certainly an unethical thing to do, and with dozens of them it's clearly not an accident, but would it be acceptable to amend the papers with the relevant declarations? The impression I get is that this is somebody who does at least somewhat valuable work while also unethically self-dealing. It would be too bad if the valuable part were lost. The papers are highly cited (unless that's just the effect of the self-citations). I'd have expected that work that cites a paper would have at least some chance of catching outright errors, though I know that the "softer" the field is the less likely that is. It sounds as if there is more going on, that the papers are untrustworthy. Perhaps they wouldn't have passed peer review if the declaration had been included.

stonogo 4y ago
We have no way to know what is valuable in these papers, because the author was the journal editor and skipped the peer review process entirely.
- culopatin 4y ago
  Also who’s to edit the paper? People would have to redo the research for him to verify the results with different tooling.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Peer review doesn't do much at all to ensure the papers have merit.
  - stonogo 4y ago
    Not doing much at all is a damn sight better than doing nothing, which appears to have been the case here.
    - s1artibartfast 4y ago
      Peer review does not look at data integrity, and rarely looks at methods. Studies have been done that show that peer review only catches something as gross as improper participant randomization 50% of the time, and finer details less often. At a higher level, the purpose of peer review is to determine if the results of a paper are prestigious enough to be included in a journal and should not be construed to impart validity. My personal opinion is that more people shouldn't move towards self-publishing and drop the facade of Journal peer review all together.

water-data-dude 4y ago

The article only cursorily mentions what is, to me, the most glaring flaw in their work. “Baby and Infant Screen for Children with Autism Traits” to “BISCUIT” is a criminally bad acronym.