Richard Horton, the chief editor of Lancet, recently wrote an editorial “Research integrity-a challenge not a crisis”. He feels that the fraudulent research is not a crisis in the field of science publication. This is of course a defensive knee jerk reaction of an editor. A letter by Grey et al saying, no, it’s a crisis followed. So, what constitutes a challenge and what is a crisis?
May I suggest a simple way to decide what a challenge and what a crisis is, using a simple metaphor? In fatal cancer, cancer cells are still in a minority. Majority of cells are normal and functional. The cancer cells can kill even when they still constitute a small percentage of the total body cells. The body has mechanisms to prevent cancer or launch an immune response. Showing that the mechanisms exist is not enough to prevent cancer, they have to work. A growing tumour means they are not. Having a continued vigil is a challenge, but when it falls short and is unable to meet the challenge, it is a crisis. In short, cancer causing mutations is a challenge, but a growing tumour is a crisis.
The parallel with research integrity is obvious. Like cancer cells, only a minority of researchers may be directly involved in fraudulent research. Also, academic systems have mechanisms to arrest misconduct. Is this sufficient to deny crisis? The critical question is whether the peer reviews, editorial distinctions, integrity committees and PubPeer like platforms really work. Their presence is not enough. Is there any way to decide whether the spirit of science is dying out or surviving despite the challenge? Multiple studies have shown the failure of peer reviews and editorial decisions. The number of retractions are growing, number of articles expressing concern about misconduct are growing. But it can still be argued that these are exceptional failures of an otherwise working system. Whether misconduct is really growing despite the measures is difficult to decide. So, by the criteria used by Horton one cannot decide whether to call it a challenge or crisis. But I have an alternative prognostic marker, easy to measure.
A simple indicator of healthy science is the readiness to respond to questions and challenges. This can be easily checked by studying how many serious questions on PubPeer like platforms evoke a response from the authors. I have not systematically looked at data, but a quick glance also reveals that most of the serious questions remain unaddressed. In the last one year I raised about a dozen queries, serious enough to challenge the conclusions of the published papers and none received any response. This must be true beyond my own experience. This the reason why Holden Thorp had to write the editorial, “breaking the silence”, in which he appealed the community to respond to any cross questions, challenges and allegations. But this obviously has failed to break the silence, and Thorp himself failed to respond to PubPeer comments on his own article, it indicates that the culture of dialogue and debate which is so central to science is on the death bed. Without an open debate, science is dead, no matter how many papers keep on flooding the journals.
So the choice of perception is simple. If you think fatal cancer is a crisis, then research integrity is a crisis too and it has to be treated at the fundamental level. If editors of big journals and elites of the field do not feel that there is a crisis, then very soon science is going to be dead although they may still drape and decorate the corpse.
My science, My way 