IMS Magazine - Summer 2012 edition in PDF format - Institute of ...

VIEWPOINT
Publish
and Perish
Why science takes two steps forward and one step back
By S. Amanda Ali
It is the dream of every scientist to
publish a research article in Nature, Cell,
or Science. For a graduate student working
towards a PhD, a publication in one of
these prestigious journals almost guarantees
a successful defense examination, a reputable
post-doctoral fellowship, and a subsequent
tenure-track position. For a senior scientist
managing a research lab, publications of this
calibre provide an advantage in grant competitions
and give greater stability in funding.
For a research institution, high-impact publications
draw global spotlight, attract better
scientists, and earn the institution prestige.
It therefore appears to be in everyone’s best
interest to publish in the highest impact
journals possible, but this dream could be a
nightmare in disguise.
The higher the journal’s impact factor, the
higher its retraction rate 1 . Reasons for retraction
are distributed between misconduct and
honest error, but the underlying causes for
these occurrences remain largely unexamined.
Executive editor of Science, Monica M.
Bradford, defended this finding in The New
York Times by suggesting that high-impact
journals have a higher retraction rate because
they receive more attention and are subject to
more scrutiny 2 . While this may be the case, it
implies that other, lower-impact journals also
publish articles that violate ethical guidelines,
contain scientific misconduct or error,
or plagiarize previously published work, but
that those articles go unnoticed. The end result
is the same—our scientific literature is
full of error, and that error is on the rise.
A recent article in Nature reported that the
number of retraction notices has increased
10-fold over the past decade, while publications
have increased by only 44% 3 . Although
improved vigilance is a convenient and plausible
explanation for this trend, there are
other possible culprits. Astoundingly, 1-2%
of scientists have admitted to fabricating, fal-
sifying, or modifying data or results at least
once 4 . A close examination of the publishing
pipeline reveals several points where the
pressure to publish may overwhelm an otherwise
honest scientist, leading them to transgression.
As mentioned, graduate students
need to publish to build their future, and
senior scientists need to publish to secure
their future. This pressure to publish is compounded
by the predominant bias to publish
positive results more than negative results.
(For a complete discussion of the research bias
towards positive results, see “Positive Pressure,”
in our Fall 2011 issue.) While only a minority
of scientists may be willing to fabricate or
falsify results to fit their hypotheses, a majority
of scientists may be inclined to select data
which support their hypotheses, and ignore
data which do not.
There lies the danger of predicating the success
of a scientist on their publication record;
the purpose for publishing shifts toward
Photo courtesy of www.istockphoto.com; ID # 16340434
31 | IMS MAGAZINE SUMMER 2012 GENOMIC MEDICINE