Retractions in Science

To continue with our bad science education focus, today's article will discuss how the number of retractions has escalated dramatically. As I said before, people want the grants and prestige with being the one to discover or make up a new theory, so they rush their work to market. This results in some retractions. But even so, bad "science" is still in the textbooks.

The number of retracted scientific papers has skyrocketed in the last decade. In 2010, two science editors started Retraction Watch, a blog dedicated to tracking science paper retractions. So far, the site has tracked about 200 papers.

Retractions can occur for different reasons. About 73 percent of retracted papers in 2010 had errors, either in the research methods used or in the writing, and about 27 percent contained fraud, according to a recent presentation on the blog.

But just because a retraction occurs doesn't mean that the flawed report goes away. Nature reported that 235 papers retracted between 1966 and 1996 were cited in 2,000 later studies, and only 8 percent of those acknowledged the retractions.

To read the rest of "More Transparency Needed in Science Textbooks, Museums", click here.

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