The headline caught my eye, as it was intended to: “One in five chemists have deliberately added errors into their papers during peer review, study finds.” It’s introducing an article in Chemical and Engineering News reporting on a new article in the journal Accountability in Research by Frédérique Bordignon, who surveyed research chemists about their experience of the peer review process. The article’s abstract echoes the news headline, saying, “Some authors yield to reviewer pressure knowingly introducing changes that are clearly wrong.” That’s a fairly eye-popping result — peer reviewers are pressuring scientists to introduce changes that are clearly wrong into our descriptions of our research?
Well, here’s the funny thing: If I’d been a reviewer on that paper, I’d have said that statement in the abstract was an error. I’d probably also have said that it was a dangerous one.
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