The biggest reason I wanted to share this story is that the fallout wasn’t as bad as I expected. Everyone I talked to — literally everyone — said something along the lines of, “Yeah, it stinks, but it’s best that you found it yourself and you’re doing the right thing.” I didn’t lose my grant. I got tenure. The editor and publisher were understanding and ultimately opted not to retract the paper but to instead publish a revised version of the article, linked to from the original paper, with the results section updated to reflect the true (opposite) results. After spending months coming to terms with the fact that the paper would be retracted, it wasn’t.
From the article: