Most medical research results have difficulty passing the decade mark. This one is surprising as it "failed" so quickly. That raises more questions on the publisher. Was it peer reviewed? Was the peer review process gamed or tainted? These are transparency questions the scientific community needs to know. Where there citations to it? Were their references tainted as well?
Yes, it was peer reviewed. It's just that peer review isn't a mark of truth. Reviewers don't even try to replicate the experiments, for example. They're just scanning it to make sure that it makes sense, seems noteworthy, contains the information required to replicate it, avoids obvious errors, and so on.
Peer review means that a paper isn't obviously wrong or obviously useless, which isn't the same as meaning that it's right and useful. It's just the next step in the collaborative process of science.
It's possible for peer review to be tainted, but that's not necessary for incorrect results to get published. It could be anything from a simple mistake to outright fraud on the part of researchers.
Yes, any citations of the paper need to be questioned, though in many cases it will only be one piece of support of many, and won't change the conclusion. That's how science works; it's a continuously updated process. That's how we go from the unknown to the known; if we learned it all at once we'd have finished science a long time ago.
As Retraction Watch notes, the journal is not disputing the study (they refused to respond to a request) but has no interest in publishing the study because they seem to be questioning the motives of the authors.
Either the study is valid or it isn’t. Disliking the authors should not be a factor.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 24.0 ms ] threadPeer review means that a paper isn't obviously wrong or obviously useless, which isn't the same as meaning that it's right and useful. It's just the next step in the collaborative process of science.
It's possible for peer review to be tainted, but that's not necessary for incorrect results to get published. It could be anything from a simple mistake to outright fraud on the part of researchers.
Yes, any citations of the paper need to be questioned, though in many cases it will only be one piece of support of many, and won't change the conclusion. That's how science works; it's a continuously updated process. That's how we go from the unknown to the known; if we learned it all at once we'd have finished science a long time ago.
Either the study is valid or it isn’t. Disliking the authors should not be a factor.
This is breaking from standard protocol.
I would agree in the past retracted papers are poorly marked. But this is not the solution.