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A community of detectives looking for errors in scientific research has shocked some of the world’s most prestigious research institutions and the entire scientific community.
The high-profile case of alleged image manipulation in a paper written by a former Stanford University president and a leader at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has made national media headlines, with some top scientific leaders , some wonder if this is just the beginning.
“At this rate, we’re going to see another paper published every few weeks,” said Holden, editor-in-chief of the Science series, one of the two most influential journals in the world.・Mr. Thorpe said. on site.
Detectives say their work is needed to correct the scientific record and prevent generations of researchers from pursuing dead-end themes because of flawed papers.And some scientists say It’s time for universities and academic publishers to reform the way they deal with flawed research.
“I can understand why the detectives who discovered these things are so upset,” said Michael, a biologist and former editor of the journal eLife and a prominent voice for reform in scientific publishing. Eisen said. “Authors, journals, institutions, everyone is encouraged to minimize the importance of these things.”
For about a decade, science detectives discovered widespread problems with scientific images in published papers and aired their concerns online, but they received little attention.
Last summer, neuroscientist and then-Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned following scrutiny over allegations of image manipulation in a study he helped author and a report criticizing his lab culture. Since then, things have started to change. Although Tessier-Lavigne himself was not found to have engaged in any wrongdoing, members of his lab appeared to have manipulated the images in questionable ways, the scientific committee hired to investigate the allegations said. The report of the association stated.
In January, a blogger’s scathing post exposed questionable research by top leaders at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which subsequently told the journal it had retracted six papers and published dozens more. requested that a correction be issued.
In his resignation statement, Tessier-Lavigne said the committee could not find that he knew of any wrongdoing and that he never submitted documents that appeared to be inaccurate. In a statement from its research integrity officer, Dana-Farber said it had taken decisive action to correct the scientific record and that discrepancies in the images were not necessarily evidence that the authors were trying to deceive.
“We are certainly living through a moment in the public consciousness that really turned a corner when the Mark Tessier-Lavigne scandal happened, and since then the Dana-Farber scandal has been the most recent and It’s been steady,” Thorpe said.
Now, this long-standing problem is receiving national attention, with the advent of new artificial intelligence tools that are helping to address issues ranging from decades-old mistakes and sloppy science to unethically manipulated images in photo-editing software. , it just makes it easier to spot various problems.
This increased scrutiny is changing the way some publishers operate. And universities, journals, and researchers are being asked to consider new technologies, the potential backlog of undiscovered errors, and ways to increase transparency when problems are identified.
This comes at a difficult time in academic venues. Venture capitalist Bill Ackman, In last month’s post by X We discussed weaponizing artificial intelligence to identify plagiarism by leaders of top universities with ideological differences, and raised questions about political motivations in plagiarism investigations. More broadly, public trust in scientists and science has steadily declined in recent years, according to the Pew Research Center.
Eisen said he doesn’t think detectives’ concerns about scientific images stray into “McCarthyist” territory.
“I think they’re targeting a very specific type of problem in the literature, and they’re right. That’s bad,” Eisen said.
Scientific publishing is the primary way that scientists build a foundation of understanding about their fields of expertise and that researchers with new discoveries outline their work to their colleagues. Before publication, scientific journals review submissions and send them to researchers outside the field for scrutiny, looking for errors or faulty inferences. This is called peer review. Journal editors review research results for plagiarism and copy editing before they are published.
The system is not perfect and still relies on good faith efforts by researchers to avoid manipulating research results.
Over the past 15 years, scientists have become increasingly concerned that some researchers are digitally altering images in papers to distort or enhance their results. Spotting irregularities in images of experiments, typically involving mice, gels, or blots, has become a greater priority in the work of scientific journals.
The field of image integrity screening has grown rapidly since Yana Christopher, a scientific imaging expert who works for the European Federation of Biochemical Societies and its journals, started working in the field about 15 years ago. He said he was doing it.
At the time, “nobody was doing this, and people were in denial about research misconduct,” Christopher said. “The general view was that it was very rare and that people were sometimes found to fudge the results.”
Scientific journals now have entire teams dedicated to processing images and ensuring their accuracy. More papers are being retracted than ever before, with more than 10,000 papers being retracted last year, a record high, according to a Nature analysis.
A loose group of scientific detectives applied external pressure. Detectives often find and flag errors and potential manipulation on the online forum PubPeer. Some detectives receive little or no compensation or public recognition for their work.
“There’s a certain level of alarm,” Eisen said.
After analyzing comments on over 24,000 articles posted on PubPeer, we found that over 62% of PubPeer comments were related to image manipulation.
For years, detectives relied on a keen eye, keen pattern recognition, and an understanding of photo manipulation tools. Over the past few years, artificial intelligence tools that can scan documents for defects have been rapidly developed and greatly enhanced.
Scientific journals are now employing similar technology to prevent errors leading up to publication. Science in January The company announced it is using an artificial intelligence tool called Proofig to scan papers that are being edited and peer-reviewed for publication.
Science editor-in-chief Thorp said the family of six journals “quietly” added the tool to their workflows about six months before this January’s announcement. Previously, this journal relied on visual inspection to detect these types of issues.
Mr. Thorp said that during the editing process, Mr. Plooffig had removed papers that had not been published because they had “logical explanations” for problematic images that were difficult to explain, or for problems that the authors had fixed before publication. He said he had identified several.
“Less than 1% of errors are significant enough to prevent a paper from being published,” Thorp said.
Chris Graff, director of research integrity at publisher Springer Nature, said in a statement that the company is developing and testing “in-house AI image integrity software” to check for duplicate images. . Graf’s research integrity department currently uses Proofig to evaluate papers in case concerns arise after publication.
Graff said the process differs from journal to journal, but some Springer Nature publications use Adobe Photoshop tools to manually check image manipulation and perform experiments to visualize cellular components or general They say they are looking for discrepancies in raw data from scientific experiments.
“Although AI-based tools can help speed and scale investigations, we still believe the human element is important in all investigations,” Graf said, noting that image recognition software is not perfect and that human Protect against false positives and negatives, which requires specialized knowledge.
No tool can detect all mistakes and fraud.
“There are a lot of people involved in that process. You can never catch them all,” Thorpe said. “As journals, institutions, and authors, we need to do a better job of dealing with this when it happens.”
Many forensic scientists became frustrated that their concerns were ignored or that investigations moved slowly without a public resolution.
Sholto-David, who publicly aired his concerns about the Dana-Farber study in a blog post, said the response from journal editors was so unsatisfactory that he almost “gave up on” writing a letter to journal editors about the errors he had discovered. ” he said.
Elizabeth Bick, a microbiologist and longtime image detective, said that if she frequently reports problems with images, “nothing happens.”
Leaving public comments on PubPeer that question research numbers can start a public conversation around questionable research, but authors and institutions often don’t respond directly to online criticism.
Journals can issue corrections or retractions, but it is usually the responsibility of research institutions or universities to investigate incidents. If the incident involves federally funded biomedical research, the federal Office of Research Integrity can investigate.
Mr Thorpe said agencies needed to take responsibility when mistakes were discovered and act more quickly to speak frankly and publicly about what happened to gain public trust.
“The university has been very slow to respond, very slow to implement the process, and the longer it goes on, the more damage there will be,” Thorpe said. “I don’t know what would have happened if Stanford had said, ‘These papers are wrong,’ instead of starting this investigation.” We’re going to retract them. It’s our responsibility. But for now, we are taking responsibility and acknowledging this. ”
Some scientists worry that the problems with the images only scratch the surface of the problem of scientific integrity. Problems with images are much easier to spot than simple data errors in spreadsheets.
And while it’s important to crack down on bad papers and hold them accountable, some scientists believe these measures are aimed at a bigger problem: those who publish the most exciting results rather than long-lasting results. believes that it will treat the symptoms of a culture that rewards careers.
“Scientific culture itself doesn’t say we care about being right. It says we care about getting papers that fly away,” Eisen said. Told.
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