Taxacom: Science fraud - Nature

[Tony Rees]

Hi John,

I took a look at the paper which is online and open access. I must say when
I saw it at the time of original publication I thought its main conclusions
very odd and at variance with almost all other research on the topic.

Just to be clear per your thread title - the paper does not appear in
"Nature" (which I imagine might have a higher degree of scrutiny), but in
"The European Physical Journal Plus" which is a different outlet, albeit
from the same publisher.

Best - Tony
Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
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On Fri, 25 Aug 2023 at 03:59, John Grehan via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
wrote:

> Recently when I noted about ZooNova as a publication option, a Taxacom
> colleague implied (oof list) that the journal was dubious because he
> considered one (or more) papers to be dubious (in that person's judgement).
> Here is a classic case of a 'Top' journal retracting a paper, showing that
> the supposed 'prestige' of a journal has nothing necessarily to do with its
> content. In this case it was picked up on because the paper in question
> appears to have run afoul of a sufficient number of prominent or
> influential researchers. In biogeography this does not happen, as the
> prominent (powerful and influential) players all play to the fraud (that
> being the misrepresentation of what CODA methods can or cannot do or
> support). Power is everything in science.
>
> Top science publisher Springer Nature said it has withdrawn a study that
> presented misleading conclusions on climate change impacts after an
> investigation prompted by an AFP inquiry.
> AFP reported in September 2022 on concerns over the peer-reviewed study by
> four Italian scientists that appeared earlier that year in the European
> Physical Journal Plus, published by Springer Nature.
> The study had drawn positive attention from climate-sceptic media.
> The paper, titled "A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times
> of global warming", purported to review data on possible changes in the
> frequency or intensity of rainfall, cyclones, tornadoes, droughts and other
> extreme weather events.
> Several climate scientists contacted by AFP said the study manipulated
> data, cherry picked facts and ignored others that would contradict their
> assertions, prompting the publisher to launch an internal review.
> "The Editors and publishers concluded that they no longer had confidence in
> the results and conclusions of the article," Springer Nature told AFP in an
> email late Wednesday.
> The journal's editors published an online note stating that the paper was
> retracted due to concerns over "the selection of the data, the analysis and
> the resulting conclusions".
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