Honestly probably a good thing -- missing such a sloppy error and then refusing to change your conclusions when it's revealed the actual values are an order of magnitude different is just...
Honestly probably a good thing -- missing such a sloppy error and then refusing to change your conclusions when it's revealed the actual values are an order of magnitude different is just ridiculously, egregiously bad.
I find it hard to judge off of this article. The responsibility you can put on the journal for the quality of the research that they publish is limited. Ultimately, they have to rely on external...
I find it hard to judge off of this article. The responsibility you can put on the journal for the quality of the research that they publish is limited. Ultimately, they have to rely on external reviewers to properly vet the science.
What I gather from the article is that their peer review and editorial process is flawed and that is part of the problem here. But even in very good journals, sometimes stuff slips through the cracks.
Unfortunately, the article is quite vague on what the problems are exactly and I am not familiar with the study or journal in question to judge.
Basically what I am trying to say is that this could happen could happen in any journal, but the issue appears to be systematic. If it were an isolated incident they wouldn't (and probably shouldn't) get this kind of backlash.
Yeah, as much as these researchers are responsible for their math errors, it seems to be a larger issue with the journal I don't know what is "normal" but 8 retractions in a month seems like a lot...
Yeah, as much as these researchers are responsible for their math errors, it seems to be a larger issue with the journal
According to Retraction Watch, Chemosphere has retracted eight articles this month and published 60 expressions of concern since April.
I don't know what is "normal" but 8 retractions in a month seems like a lot to me
Apologies, I know I'm agreeing at you in a way that sounds more like disagreeing. I think I mitigated it but wanted to mention it
Indeed! There seem to be larger issues and 8 retractions seems like a lot to me too. I'm curious though why it happens. My experience is that the editor only really checks if the paper is a good...
Indeed! There seem to be larger issues and 8 retractions seems like a lot to me too.
I'm curious though why it happens.
My experience is that the editor only really checks if the paper is a good fit for the journal and then finds reviewers. So then are the editors not finding reviewers that are actually qualified? Or do they accept papers anyway even if the refs recommend rejection? Or does the journal just attract papers of a certain quality? So many questions...
Retractions every now and then happen and normally I would not blame the journal (I have enough other reasons to dislike academic publishers haha) even if the authors made such an obvious mistake. The process is not perfect even if done right. We also had once that one of our papers got accepted and we were left with the impression that none of the reviewers spent much time reading the manuscript. And that was a very prestigious journal in my field.
But the fact that it seems so common in their case is quite concerning and that's what people ought to be focussing on. That one specific retraction makes for a good headline but I'm a bit worried it makes people miss the point because they are not familiar with how journals work.
For what it's worth I think the people that need to know will understand, it's not something most people will think more about. They may think it's over this paper but I don't think that's...
For what it's worth I think the people that need to know will understand, it's not something most people will think more about. They may think it's over this paper but I don't think that's necessarily a problem because I don't think it leads to bad outcomes unless they're the ones actively reading journals.(And if they were, they'd probably have the missing context.)
The specific issue in this case was that they quite literally multiplied two numbers wrong - they added a 0 to the result, making it an order of magnitude higher than it should have been. This...
The specific issue in this case was that they quite literally multiplied two numbers wrong - they added a 0 to the result, making it an order of magnitude higher than it should have been. This went from “black plastics can leech almost the safe limit of bromine into your food” into “black plastics can leech about 10% the safe limit of bromine”.
If that still sounds bad, I’d note that you’d get about the same amount of bromine from the daily recommended amount of fresh fruit. A risk, nonetheless, but maybe one that looks different in different context.
There’s other issues with the study about the likelihood of these recycled plastics actually being in modern utensils. But the shockingly bad arithmetic is the main one. Like, you can just look the order of magnitude of the numbers and know it’s wrong. It’d be as if I said 24 * 40 = 24,000.
Due to the initial, incorrect, results of the study, we actually dumped a vast majority of our black plastic, including our coffee pot, which was replaced with a metal percolator. Annoying that...
Due to the initial, incorrect, results of the study, we actually dumped a vast majority of our black plastic, including our coffee pot, which was replaced with a metal percolator.
Annoying that I've had to send the correction to people I sent the initial publishing to, but I also don't regret replacing the vast majority of my plastic cooking stuff with metal, as well as the percolator, which makes delicious coffee and manages to somehow keep it hot without burning it like my old pot. I'm also super happy with my new metal spatulas, so cheers to buying better cooking tools, in spite of dubious science.
At the very least you're probably more comfortable using your cooking utensils now and can have better peace of mind; that's worth something! I believe there's probably some kind of poison in...
At the very least you're probably more comfortable using your cooking utensils now and can have better peace of mind; that's worth something!
I believe there's probably some kind of poison in pretty much everything we consume these days, especially if it's cheap or plastic; so trying to avoid it all is very difficult.
Honestly probably a good thing -- missing such a sloppy error and then refusing to change your conclusions when it's revealed the actual values are an order of magnitude different is just ridiculously, egregiously bad.
I find it hard to judge off of this article. The responsibility you can put on the journal for the quality of the research that they publish is limited. Ultimately, they have to rely on external reviewers to properly vet the science.
What I gather from the article is that their peer review and editorial process is flawed and that is part of the problem here. But even in very good journals, sometimes stuff slips through the cracks.
Unfortunately, the article is quite vague on what the problems are exactly and I am not familiar with the study or journal in question to judge.
Basically what I am trying to say is that this could happen could happen in any journal, but the issue appears to be systematic. If it were an isolated incident they wouldn't (and probably shouldn't) get this kind of backlash.
Yeah, as much as these researchers are responsible for their math errors, it seems to be a larger issue with the journal
I don't know what is "normal" but 8 retractions in a month seems like a lot to me
Apologies, I know I'm agreeing at you in a way that sounds more like disagreeing. I think I mitigated it but wanted to mention it
Indeed! There seem to be larger issues and 8 retractions seems like a lot to me too.
I'm curious though why it happens.
My experience is that the editor only really checks if the paper is a good fit for the journal and then finds reviewers. So then are the editors not finding reviewers that are actually qualified? Or do they accept papers anyway even if the refs recommend rejection? Or does the journal just attract papers of a certain quality? So many questions...
Retractions every now and then happen and normally I would not blame the journal (I have enough other reasons to dislike academic publishers haha) even if the authors made such an obvious mistake. The process is not perfect even if done right. We also had once that one of our papers got accepted and we were left with the impression that none of the reviewers spent much time reading the manuscript. And that was a very prestigious journal in my field.
But the fact that it seems so common in their case is quite concerning and that's what people ought to be focussing on. That one specific retraction makes for a good headline but I'm a bit worried it makes people miss the point because they are not familiar with how journals work.
For what it's worth I think the people that need to know will understand, it's not something most people will think more about. They may think it's over this paper but I don't think that's necessarily a problem because I don't think it leads to bad outcomes unless they're the ones actively reading journals.(And if they were, they'd probably have the missing context.)
The specific issue in this case was that they quite literally multiplied two numbers wrong - they added a 0 to the result, making it an order of magnitude higher than it should have been. This went from “black plastics can leech almost the safe limit of bromine into your food” into “black plastics can leech about 10% the safe limit of bromine”.
If that still sounds bad, I’d note that you’d get about the same amount of bromine from the daily recommended amount of fresh fruit. A risk, nonetheless, but maybe one that looks different in different context.
There’s other issues with the study about the likelihood of these recycled plastics actually being in modern utensils. But the shockingly bad arithmetic is the main one. Like, you can just look the order of magnitude of the numbers and know it’s wrong. It’d be as if I said 24 * 40 = 24,000.
Due to the initial, incorrect, results of the study, we actually dumped a vast majority of our black plastic, including our coffee pot, which was replaced with a metal percolator.
Annoying that I've had to send the correction to people I sent the initial publishing to, but I also don't regret replacing the vast majority of my plastic cooking stuff with metal, as well as the percolator, which makes delicious coffee and manages to somehow keep it hot without burning it like my old pot. I'm also super happy with my new metal spatulas, so cheers to buying better cooking tools, in spite of dubious science.
At the very least you're probably more comfortable using your cooking utensils now and can have better peace of mind; that's worth something!
I believe there's probably some kind of poison in pretty much everything we consume these days, especially if it's cheap or plastic; so trying to avoid it all is very difficult.