(Note, this obviously cannot be 0% because some papers ARE retracted)
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Health Nerd Retweeted Gregory Herczeg
To clarify, the rate that you think papers are published with errors that SHOULD lead to retraction, even if they are never retractedhttps://twitter.com/GregHerczeg/status/1338602871697403905?s=20 …
Health Nerd added,
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So the results are rolling in, and it doesn't look great for published research! A lot of people who think that 1 in 200 papers is worthy of retraction


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But let's be more conservative and say 1 in 1,000 papers is bad enough to be retracted With ~100,000 papers published on COVID-19 this year, we'd expect about 100 retractions
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How many COVID-19 papers do you think have been retracted in 2020 (roughly)?
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Now, this number is hard to come by, but if we use the database from
@RetractionWatch it looks like about 44 papers have been retracted (although some were just preprints)https://retractionwatch.com/retracted-coronavirus-covid-19-papers/ …3 replies 1 retweet 7 likesShow this thread -
Given that this is not perfectly comprehensive, despite the excellent work of
@RetractionWatch, let's say somewhere around 50 is about right So, given an error rate of 1 in 1,000, half the retractions we'd expect1 reply 0 retweets 7 likesShow this thread -
If the error rate is higher (and it very well may be), this number drops sharply. If we think that 1 in 200 papers is bad enough to be retracted, then only 10% of the expected retractions are happening
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Bottom line: we know that there is an error rate in published research EVEN IF THIS IS LOW, retractions are much rarer than we'd expect if the system was working well
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Replying to @GidMK
What about the lag? We know we get publish fast, really fast... shouldn't we expect a lag in retracting, either by authors or editors/publishers? Which is the timing of these 44 retractions?
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Well, about half of them were preprints that were retracted quite quickly. If we exclude those, it's more like 20 retractions this year so far, mostly for outright fraud
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