Zero debate “Science”?

There have been many mega debates on various issues in science which became landmarks in the progress of science. The debate on interpretation of quantum mechanics, the Lamarckian-Darwinian evolution debate, the sociobiology debate, the correlation causation debate all have been among the celebrated ones. All of them were crucial in deciding the path towards better science, clearer concepts and passionate pursuit of truth.

Can you name any ongoing debate about any fundamental scientific issue? At least I can’t. But we hear umpteen number of fights about research misconduct, fraudulent publications, paper mills, accusations of plagiarism, demands for retraction and court cases based on any of these. Where are academia going?

I have several anecdotes, not about debates, rather about what should have been debated, but wasn’t. The biggest story is that of Type 2 diabetes. My group showed with multiple lines of evidence (including reproducibility confirmed experiments, sound mathematical models, epidemiological data, clinical trial data, exposing logical anomalies in existing theory) that the insulin resistance based theory behind type 2 diabetes was unsustainable, falsified and utterly wrong. The glucose normalization focus of treatment has failed in arresting diabetic complications because glucose is not central to diabetic pathology. Many clinical trials say this honestly. Others have claims of success which are easily turned down by simply looking at their raw data. We published this in the form of a series of peer reviewed research papers, critical reviews, many talks and conference posters, a book, many PubPeer challenges to misleading clinical trials. I am open to the possibility that I may be wrong. But someone needs to show what is wrong in our stand. What we saw instead was a complete silence. No argument, no debate, no challenge, no cross questioning. Just mum.

This is not the only story. I tried to initiate several debates on different issues, every time being careful about being sound, analytical, evidence supported, logically and mathematically rigorous. I have related some of these stories on my earlier blog posts. But nothing happened. In some cases, at a personal level the researchers whom I had directly criticized responded in personal emails. (Some, though not all, were kind enough to make me their raw data available, on analyzing which I could not support their claims.) Their responses often sounded like “explainawaytions” which did not satisfy me, but that is a minor issue. What intrigues me is that they were not ready for any open debate in the public domain. I had not tried using the PubPeer platform until 3 years ago, but of late I posted on PubPeer serious questions and issues about many publications in leading journals including Science, Nature Medicine, PLOS medicine, Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. The issues raised were seriously challenging the validity of their conclusions. Again, if I was wrong, they could have shown where I was wrong. If it was inadvertent errors, they could have corrected. In one of the letters to the editor I wrote, “If it is an inadvertent mistake, it would be appropriate to correct it to avoid misinterpretation by the reader. But if it is meant for intentional misleading of the reader, then it need not be corrected.” AND THEY DID NOT CORRECT!!  

I have dozens of such stories but the top ranking story is about the editors of Science. Holden thorp and Meagan Phelan wrote an editorial in Science on 13^th Feb 2025 entitled, “Breaking the silence”. Wow. They were saying just what I had in mind. If anyone raises any serious issue about the science you published anywhere, you may or may not agree with the challenger but you need to respond. “Silence can be detrimental to public trust”, they said further. I could conclude from this editorial that it is not my experience alone that nobody responds. It is a very common phenomenon and that is detrimental to the spirit of science. Reading the editorial further was somewhat disappointing. I realized that they are not talking about engaging in arguments, debates and challenges; they are mainly focusing only on accusations of fraudulent science!! The mind boggling work of the science sleuths, about which I have admiration, has made an undesirable change. Now the organizations working for science integrity, with good intentions, make every retraction a news headline. The bad effect of this is that, any issue or question raised, discussion, debate or challenge is viewed as an accusation of misconduct. No, we need debates without smelling misconduct. “I think you are mistaken”, or “this analysis could have been done in a better way” is not an accusation. It is to be taken constructively. It should initiate a debate. Difference of opinion is an intrinsic part of science. But the ado about misconduct and retractions has changed the culture unfortunately. Just as the number of papers and JIF are dumb numerical additions to CVs; a PubPeer comment is a taken as equally dumbly negative “score”. If you respond to the comment, there will be more conversation on it and it will be flagged “seven PubPeer comments on this paper.” Without reading what the comments actually say, it will be taken as detrimental to reputation. This is perhaps one major reason why public debates don’t happen now.

But shouldn’t they? Can science exist without debates?

Nobody listens to me; that I can understand. But shouldn’t an editorial in Science make some difference? Over the months that followed, I had many more experiences that made me understand why nobody listens to the editors of Science. The editorial asserted clearly, “Science responds when questions are raised by the scientific community or the public about its published research papers and counsels authors and institutions to do the same, ensuring that legitimate concerns are addressed. This means being straightforward when there are problems while standing up for papers that are correct.”

On 24^th June 2025 Thorp wrote another editorial to which I responded pointing out (but in somewhat sugar coated words) that your editorial is honest but is looking at the problem rather superficially. There is a need to go to the root causes of the academic problems. Science made my e-letter public but there was no response to the comments. On a subsequent editorial of 18^th Sept 2025 also addressing research integrity I decided to be more straightforward and responded saying very directly that your thinking is truly very superficial. The causes behind research integrity problems are behavioural and the fundamental solution lies in redesigning academia and science publishing making them behaviourally sound. Eliminating bad incentives and ensuring that the cost-benefits of genuine science become more favorable than the cost-benefits of fraudulent science. Of late, many academic groups have been working on behaviour optimized system design. You may encourage them to design behaviour optimized academic systems and that would be a fundamental and long-term solution. I also said that Trump administration has created an opportunity to introspect. Whatever their political motives are, the opportunity to rethink is real. If this is missed, academic reforms will become impossible. This time they did not even make my letter public, forget about giving any thoughtful response. Perhaps my language was too honest, I mean too crude for Science to published. Let’s assume it was rejected for the language issue. Not for the point made.

Then came a report of a study initiated by Science editorial team itself. Jeffray Brainard wrote a story on this report which said that researchers from different countries and institutions have very different acceptance rates in Science. The most straightforward interpretation of this, along with many other well-designed studies is that this is because of peer review bias. But most editors of Science that Brainard interviewed including Holden Thorp kept on illuding peer review bias as the cause. I wrote a PubPeer comment, individually refereeing to what everyone specifically said, that they were playing ostrich. There is ample evidence that there is large peer review bias and you selectively ignore that evidence. A little prior to this incident there was another news article in Science where again the data indicated peer review bias but nobody even considered the possibility. I wrote a PubPeer comment on that too, exposing the cherry picking in both the studies and their news coverage in Science. The response to this was also complete silence.

This contrasts the editorial promise of 13^th Feb 2025 that Science will be prompt in engaging with any kind of critical response. It will not avoid getting into a debate. But in reality it has also failed to break the silence. Now I know why nobody would follow the advice of science editors. They don’t really mean it. It’s only lip service.

I have a request to my readers. Can you suggest me a sophisticated and sugar-coated word for “hypocrisy”? That word is too honest for the field of academia and science publishing!!