Readers may recall some ethics objections I raised in my complaint letter to UWA and Psychological Science, and also sent to Frontiers. It seems Frontiers agrees.
This statement was posted on their website today:
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Rights of Human Subjects in Scientific Papers
The retracted Recursive Fury paper has created quite a blogger and twitter storm. A sensational storm indeed, with hints to conspiracy theories, claims of legal threats and perceived contradictions. It has been fury – one of the strongest human emotions – that has (perhaps understandably at first sight) guided the discussion around this retraction. Not surprisingly though, the truth is not as sensational and much simpler.
The studied subjects were explicitly identified in the paper without their consent. It is well acknowledged and accepted that in order to protect a subject’s rights and avoid a potentially defamatory outcome, one must obtain the subject’s consent if they can be identified in a scientific paper. The mistake was detected after publication, and the authors and Frontiers worked hard together for several months to try to find a solution. In the end, those efforts were not successful. The identity of the subjects could not be protected and the paper had to be retracted. Frontiers then worked closely with the authors on a mutually agreed and measured retraction statement to avoid the retraction itself being misused. From the storm this has created, it would seem we did not succeed.
For Frontiers, publishing the identities of human subjects without consent cannot be justified in a scientific paper. Some have argued that the subjects and their statements were in the public domain and hence it was acceptable to identify them in a scientific paper, but accepting this will set a dangerous precedent. With so much information of each of us in the public domain, think of a situation where scientists use, for example, machine learning to cluster your public statements and attribute to you personality characteristics, and then name you on the cluster and publish it as a scientific fact in a reputable journal. While the subjects and their statements were public, they did not give their consent to a public psychological diagnosis in a scientific study. Science cannot be abused to specifically label and point out individuals in the public domain.
It is most unfortunate that this particular incident was around climate change, because climate change is a very serious threat for human civilization. But the importance of the subject matter does not justify abandoning our principles.
Frontiers’ core mission is to improve peer review. One principle that we follow is that scientific publishing should sit in the hands of scientists. Frontiers implements this principle by supporting scientists to operate the peer-review process from the beginning to the end. Frontiers remains faithful to this mission, despite the risks that comes with it. We will stay the course because we fundamentally believe that authors should bear the full responsibility of submitting papers with the highest standards and that scientists should bear the full responsibility of deciding what science is published. After publication, the community is engaged and a post-publication review naturally follows. Post-publication review is facilitated by the Frontiers’ commenting and social networking platforms. This process may reveal fundamental errors or issues that go against principles of scholarly publishing. Like all other journals, Frontiers seriously investigates any well-founded complaints or allegations, and retraction only happens in cases of absolute necessity and only after extensive analysis. For the paper in question, the issue was clear, the analysis was exhaustive, all efforts were made to work with the authors to find a solution and we even worked on the retraction statement with the authors. But there was no moral dilemma from the start – we do not support scientific publications where human subjects can be identified without their consent.
Editor-in-Chief, Frontiers
Source:
http://www.frontiersin.org/blog/Rights_of_Human_Subjects_in_Scientific_Papers/830
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There is a new post in Retraction Watch about this. One commenter has stated (in all seriousness as far as I can tell) “I would like to congratulate the authors with this excellent piece of work. Excellent introduction and discussion and excellent field work. The paper is easy readable for non-psychologists as well. Highly recommended for any student of psychology who wants to become a good scientist.”
I really despair for science in the 21st century.
The peer review that a journal does before publication is to protect the reputation of the journal.
You got that right!
Recursive Non-Consent by Lewandowsky
John
Pokerguy Says:
“I still don’t see this as much of a victory. It’s clear enough they’re standing behind the paper’s conclusions. In effect they’re saying, yes indeed, these people are indeed nut jobs. The mistake we made was in allowing them to be named.”
You’re way of the mark on that one dude. Frontier’s has no business in determining the validity of a claimed outcomes of a paper. Had they done so, Lew would have a cause for grievance. It is up to the relevant professional/academic communities to argue the merits of findings.
From where I’m standing Dr. Lew is a vindictive whack job who needs to have his head examined. Pity, you see it otherwise, but please refrain from projecting your own thoughts onto the those responsible for the retraction.
John Whitman …
Recursive Farce
– – – – – – –
Jordan,
Recursive Retraction Déjà Vu for Lewandowsky by Frontiers
(Apologies to Yogi Berra)
: )
John
J Calvert, responded to the animal researcher you quoted with:
Klaas, you may be attacked by the animals you study as part of an objective, impartial study. But even for a study of animals it is unethical behaviour to vigorously attack the animals while you study them and then publish their reactions as psychological (animal) disorders…
The Frontiers Journal is quite right “not support scientific publications where human subjects can be identified without their consent”. However, Lewandowsky gets to keep intact his belief in conspiracy theorists. The “Fury” abstract begins
The Fury paper purported to show conspiracist ideation in the reactions to the Hoax paper. A follow-up US study also claimed to find that “conspiracist ideation …… is associated with the rejection of all scientific propositions tested.”
This seems a quite plausible hypothesis, but the Hoax paper had few who believed in conspiracy theories (e.g. 10/1145 believed in the Moon Hoax), so it was not properly tested. In contrast the follow-up US study had lots of believers in conspiracy theories. Analysis of the data reveals something quite different to what is claimed. Strong opinions with regard to conspiracy theories, whether for or against, suggest strong support for strongly-supported scientific hypotheses, and strong, but divided, opinions on climate science. The conclusion is almost a truism. If people have strong opinions is one area, they are very likely to have strong opinions in other areas.
Based on my preliminary results, it is possible to ask “Is Conspiracist Ideation Falsified?”. However, my initial results need to undergo a full battery of statistical tests.
I must agree with some of the people arguing that Frontiers is basically standing behind this paper as completely valid EXPECT for that whole name of names part.
I think at the very least that needs to be done is that part of a future statement state that UWA failed in its ethics review of this paper. It would be a very smart more on frontiers to make sure that place blame for the issue because at the moment since they published the paper one could argue in court that they failed to review it properly under the standards for which they publish. This opens them up to be included.
They also have the problem of this whole “one year of investigating”. In no way possible should it have taken a full year to see the issue of people being named in the paper. This is supported by the fact that 1. It takes far less then a year to read the paper, 2. that complaints were very clear in naming that issue and were filed very very quickly.
This begs the question of what they spent that year doing? Most likely it was consulting with lawyers to see if they could publish even with this issue AND working on a way to announce said retraction with as little damage done to the paper as possible. IE the paper WOULD BE completely valid if not for this minor ethic issue of naming names.
The sad fact is that Steve Mc, Lucia, Jo Nova and the others who were named in Fury HAVE BEEN DEFAMED. I would argue that Lew will come out smelling like a rose when the dust settles, and that his Fury findings (that skeptical bloggers are conspiracy nutters) will be used by pro-AGWers for quite some time to come, The same as they use Big Oil funding against Anthony Watts.
Rob Ricket says:
April 11, 2014 at 1:46 pm
“Frontier’s has no business in determining the validity of a claimed outcomes of a paper. Had they done so, Lew would have a cause for grievance. It is up to the relevant professional/academic communities to argue the merits of findings.”
_____________________
Where is inquiry into the papers relevant to this controversy” Whether they like it or not, their silence speaks volumes about Lewandowsky’s community of peers.
Refusal to release data and methodologies? Personal attacks against subjects? Really, they’re professionally/scientifically OK with this?
Astute observations. (IF class action suits are OK in Oz.)
“Where is inquiry into the papers relevant to this controversy” Whether they like it or not, their silence speaks volumes about Lewandowsky’s community of peers.
Refusal to release data and methodologies? Personal attacks against subjects? Really, they’re professionally/scientifically OK with this?”
It’s relevant because Pokerguy essentially is saying that the the publisher’s failure to weed through the data implies a tacit agreement with the outcomes. It most certainly does not. Furthermore, if the methodology is flawed, the outcome must necessarily be suspect as well. This especially true in the case of recursive fury, as the respondents were falsely portrayed as denying knowledge of an email that was never transmitted by Dr. Lew. So, in this case, a false premise leads to a false outcome. .
Frontiers is being shaken. This is what’s falling off.
Maybe this has pointed out previously, but the statement/excuse by Frontier that . . . “For Frontiers, publishing the identities of human subjects without consent cannot be justified in a scientific paper.” is very creative. They are not invalidating the paper or denigrating the authors. . . they’re simply stating that the paper violated the privacy of the “human subjects”.
Well violating privacy is certainly a bad thing. . . but with the way they seem to have twisted this, they seem to be shielding the survey participants, who likely are plants supporting pre-defined survey results. So Frontier is minimizing damages while deflecting attention from the authors and so-called participants. . .
Yes, I’m paranoid or a conspiracy theorist . . . or not . . . tell me. I need to know!
Dan
When scientists publish papers that clearly contain information which is known to be false, in order to support some pre-conceived position, and from which future scientific researchers will innocently accept the findings in that paper as fact, then they are performing nothing less than a disgraceful criminal act. Their behaviour therefore is such that the perpetrators should never be allowed to practice again in the field of science which they have chosen to abuse, and most certainly banned from ever having a paper published again
There is such a thing called the Nuremberg Code of Ethics, which it seems Lewandowsky has never read.
Please read it here:
http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/archive/nurcode.html
This code was adopted by virtually all research institutions planet-wide. Only the ignorant, incompetent, or malicious do not abide by it’s principles.
The code was adopted post WWII as a consequence of the abuse of science by the Nazi regime in Germany to advance Aryan eugenics, other pseudo-science and other diabolical race extermination directives.
The code was explicitly written to prevent the likes of Josef Mengele and Lewandowsky from perverting science to justify dehumanizing of the subject of the study.
How soon we forget.
It may be fortuitous that Frontiers is a not a climate or physical science journal. Even though they mouthed the knee-jerk party line about the planet being in peril, they don’t have skin in the game, in that their livelihoods don’t depend directly on keeping the AGW hoax alive. Being psychology oriented, I would think they might just want to look a little deeper into the other camp in this debate – i.e. into the minds of the warmistas. After all, wouldn’t their behavior in this episode be of interest to an inquisitive head shrinker?
Generic Geologist
Meh… they lost me at : “It is most unfortunate that this particular incident was around climate change, because climate change is a very serious threat for human civilization.”
Climate Change is a very serious threat for human civilisation. At some point in the next few thousand years, it could happen tomorrow, the Holocene Interglacial will end, and we shall have fight back the ice sheets. And the change, when it occurs, could be very abrupt – some studies have concluded the Younger Dryas, the last big drop in global temperature, struck in as short a time as a few months – certainly no more than a decade or so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
In the words of one researcher “It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard”.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427344.800-mini-ice-age-took-hold-of-europe-in-months.html
“Frontiers’ core mission is to improve peer review.”
Bang up job so far guys. What peers reviewed the paper in question?
If I was one of the people defamed in “Recursive Fury”, I would be seriously considering a complaint to the Australian Psychological Society. It is highly likely that Lewandowsky is a member, and they have what seems to be a convenient method of complaint on their website.
Since the early 1970’s, because of scandals arising from unethical studies (Milgram and Zimbardo being the most notorious perpetrators), psychology has been very keen to protect its experimental participants. If the APA takes the reputation of the discipline at all seriously, it is likely that they will take a very dim view of this episode.
I still fail to understand how any web survey designed to smear those who disagree with the beliefs of its authors, can in any way be considered science, let alone peer reviewed science.
Scientific journal standards have woefully seriously fallen when blatant propaganda is encouraged, protected and painted as something credible.
A pig with lipstick is still just a pig, and the lipstick makes it look disturbingly perverse.
https://bitly.com/SkepticalScience is here at http://wattsupwiththat.com 🙂
There respect for ethics is only for cover ,.they could care less.
The statement by Frontiers goes right to the core of the Lewandowsky approach to addressing climate change and those who argue a more skeptical interpretation of the evidence. He apparently accepts the C/AGW thesis, something that is not in his field of expertise, on the basis of the authority of the apparent statistical distribution of scientific opinion. He then abuses his position as a professor of psychology ( NB he is not a clinical psycholgist as I understand it) to attribute highly prejudicial psychological conditions to any who dare express a contrary opinion on the subject.
A clinical psychologist, like a psychiatrist or doctor, must actually engage with a client/patient personally and to an appropriate level of examination and testing before they can assign some condition to that person. To assign some condition without such proper examination is an ethical breach of the first order and nothing but pure, unadulterated quackery.
IMO that about sums La Lewny up, he is a complete quack and the recursive fury is all taking place inside his narcissistic head.
Pigheadedness.
Odds-on the paper will quietly disappear from the UWA website when the fuss has blown over and everyone has forgotten about it.