We Are All Gatekeepers Now:Scrutiny of Science Goes Public

Society for Scholarly PublishingFall Educational Seminar

November 7, 2012

Ivan Oransky, MDRetraction Watch

Reuters Health

Science Under the Microscope

The Guardian, September 13, 2012

Science Under the Microscope

The New York Times, October 1, 2012

Who Mistrusts Science?

From 1974 to 2010, “group differences in trust in science are largely stable…except for respondents identifying as conservative. Conservatives began the period with the highest trust in science, relative to liberals and moderates, and ended the period with the lowest.”

Gauchat, American Sociological Review, 2012

Who Trusts Science?

77% of respondents said they trust scientists to tell the truth, compared to less than 20% who thought the President would.

Harris poll, 2006

Who Mistrusts Science?

-- Irish Medical Research Council

What Fuels Mistrust of Science?

The argument goes something like this: Science is self-correcting, so it takes care of its own mistakes. And scientific fraud is rare, so focusing on misconduct gives a distorted picture of research that will only give ammunition to critics, who want to cast doubt on subjects such as climate change and vaccine safety.

Marcus and Oransky, Lab Times, 9/12

What Really Fuels Mistrust of Science?

It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up. People stop trusting institutions when they continue to insist “Move along, nothing to see here”, despite the stubborn persistence of misconduct.

Marcus and Oransky, Lab Times, 9/12

Themes

• Lessons from arsenic life

• The power of blogs

• Post-publication peer review, and how embracing it can promote ethical behavior

Arsenic Life

http://discovermagazine.com

Arsenic Life

http://discovermagazine.com

Anonymous Whistleblowers Step Up

http://www.labtimes.org

Blogs Get Aggressive

http://abnormalscienceblog.wordpress.com/

Blogs Get Aggressive

Blogs Get Aggressive

http://md-anderson-cc.blogspot.com

Blogs Get Aggressive

http://www.science-fraud.org/

Journals are Listening

Retraction Watch

Retraction Watch

http://www.nature.com/nm/

Retraction Watch

http://www.nature.com/nm/

Post-Publication Peer Review

Nature (22 Dec 2011) doi:10.1038/480449a

Post-Publication Peer Review

http://crossref.org/

Post-Publication Peer Review

Post-Publication Peer Review

http://precedings.nature.com/

Post-Publication Peer Review

Alt Metrics

http://total-impact.org/

Alt Metrics

http://sciencecard.org/

Contact Info

ivan-oransky@erols.com

http://retractionwatch.com

@ivanoransky (better)

Thanks to Nancy Lapid, Reuters Health