Source: Radio Adelaide
Date: 27/04/2014
Event: Elaine McKewon: Frontiers retracted "an academically and ethically sound paper"
Attribution: Radio Adelaide, University of Adelaide
People:
Des Lawrence: Two weeks ago I spoke to cognitive scientist Steve Lewandowsky about the content of a paper, Recursive Fury, which he co-wrote - the paper examines matters including the tendency of climate deniers to believe in conspiracy theories. Following peer review, the paper was published in February 2013 by the journal Frontiers in Psychology. After complaints were received from climate deniers that they had been libelled, the paper was quickly taken down, and in March of this year it was finally retracted. According to the journal, the retraction was not based on academic or ethical shortcomings, but because - quote - "the legal context is insufficiently clear". I'm speaking to Elaine McKewon of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism - she helped peer-review the paper. Welcome, Elaine.
Elaine McKewon: Ah hello, Des, thank you for having me.
Des Lawrence: Following the final retraction of the paper in March, the journal has faced a fair amount of academic criticism. Could you summarise that initial criticism?
Elaine McKewon: Certainly. Well, briefly, it's just not acceptable conduct, as far as scientists are concerned, for a journal to retract an academically and ethically sound paper. The only reason, really, that justifies a retraction is if a study is academically flawed, or they find scientific fraud, or something like that. This paper was retracted because the journal simply could not stand up to intimidation from climate deniers, and when the scientific community heard about that, of course there was a bit of a backlash. Scientists wrote immediately to the journal and expressed their dismay in the decision, and said, you know, "You've got to have a bit more backbone, as a scientific journal".
And, of course, they were worried that Frontiers would bow to pressure again and retract their papers. it's just not a very good thing to have on your record, that you had a paper retracted. And so defending academic freedom, standing up for academic freedom, is just one of the bedrock principles in the scientific community. And so scientists really took exception to the fact that Frontiers in Psychology had retracted an academically and ethically sound paper.
Des Lawrence: Things haven't just stopped at the retraction of the paper. Because of this criticism, it's prompted a whole lot of responses from Frontiers in Psychology, including what you view as contradictory remarks?
Elaine McKewon: Yes, not just contradictory - they've definitely contradicted their first statement, where they said "We have found no ethical or academic issues with the paper, but we're retracting the paper, because the legal context is insufficiently clear". And then once they started to get this backlash from the scientific community and they got negative publicity - which basically said they were spineless and they had abandoned the principle of defending academic freedom - they came up with a statement, which said, er, "Hang on, we didn't even receive any legal threats. We retracted the paper because we found academic and ethical issues with it".
And, first of all, it is patently false that they didn't receive threats. We know that's not true, because a number of the threats are a matter of public record - environmental journalist Graham Redfearn broke the story a few days before the retraction, and he released 118 pages of documents he obtained through Freedom of Information, and you can see through those documents that the journal did receive threats, and in fact in his article on DeSmogBlog he even quotes, at length, one blogger's legal threat against the journal.
Secondly, I was privy to some of the earliest threats sent to the journal, because I was one of the peer-reviewers. And I've saved some interesting email exchanges between the journal manager and the legal counsel and the reviewers. And it's very clear from the journal manager's emails that it was her perception that the journal had received legal threats from climate deniers, claiming that they had been libelled. And she convened a conference call to discuss those threats with the legal counsel and the reviewers and journal editors, and the lawyer was there to see how the journal could avoid a lawsuit, for the very reason for the call was to discuss those threats.
So I was just appalled to see that, you know, the journal is now denying this, and through false statements, and it's because they were getting so much heat for retracting the paper. Now, it didn't stop there. The journal then went further - I mean, you could say, I mean, their second statement was that they had concerns that the rights of the subjects in the paper hadn't been sufficiently protected. Now, you know, with a bit of charity, you might say that's a very mealy-mouthed statement, to, kind of, reaffirm that they had retracted the paper for legal reasons. But then, the editor in chief came out with some very intemperate remarks. And he has said things like - I'll just see if I can get the quote here - but in any case, he leaves no doubt that the journal has now adopted the position that the paper was retracted because of academic and ethical issues, which completely contradicts their first statement.
So he's saying that there were fundamental errors or issues that go against the principle of the scholarly publishing - what a terrible and untrue thing to say. Their investigation found nothing of the kind. And then he points the finger squarely at the authors and reviewers. So they take absolutely no responsibility for publishing a paper that they say shouldn't have been published in the first place. And I would just like to say, before I leave that particular subject, that this is a very suspect position for the journal to take, because they in fact commissioned an independent report by a panel of experts to further investigate the issue of human subjects and, you know, getting consent from people before quoting them in a scientific paper, and here is, you know, the killer quote from that particular report. It says - and I quote - "blog posts are regarded as public data, and the individuals posting the data are not regarded as participants in the technical sense used by research ethics committees or institutional review boards. This further entails that no consent is required for the use of such data".
So, in other words, the experts made a clear distinction between the discourse analysis of public statements, upon which the paper was based, and a scientific experiment involving human subjects. So there you go - no ethical issues, no academic issues, and the journal is still hanging onto that position, that there were fundamental issues that were inconsistent with scholarly publishing. They really have just confused - it seems like they're digging the hole deeper and deeper, and everyone is just confused and quite disgusted with their behaviour, at this point.
Des Lawrence: So in some ways they're trying to legitimate their own re-writing of history.
Elaine McKewon: Indeed, yes. And the editor-in-chief there, Henry Markram, he said some really intemperate things as well, underneath his lengthy statement. He questions the value of studying climate denial, and he suggests that when authors engage at all in trying to study climate denial it is the scientists who look like - I quote - "the biggest nutters" - he actually says this on the Frontiers website, and he clearly implies that the authors of this paper "abused science" - again, his words, they "abused science to conduct a public lynching of climate denialist bloggers". And I think this is probably the statement that has sent the scientific community into a spin, and we've just had a spate of editors resigning from the journal, particularly after that statement.
Des Lawrence: Yeah, that's the next thing I was going to get on to, then. We do have those resignations - they're quite reputable and -
Elaine McKewon: Yes.
Des Lawrence: - senior people, like a professor who's chair of cognitive psychology at the University of Bristol, Colin Davis.
Elaine McKewon: That's right. He said that the retraction itself was very disappointing, but he was also appalled by the later statements made by Frontiers. And there's also a chief specialty editor at Frontiers, Ugo Bardi, he's a professor of physical chemistry at the University of Florence - well, he said that Frontiers had shown no respect for the paper's authors and referees, and that the journal's actions reflected a climate of intimidation around climate science. And this was the purpose of my original article on The Conversation, that lawsuits can cause a chilling effect on scientific research.
And then another editor who resigned was an associate editor Björn Brembs, a professor of neurogenetics at the University of Regensburg. And he thinks that the retraction itself is outrageous, and I explained why - it was because, you know, the journal had not stood up to intimidation and had retracted an academically and ethically sound paper - and he says this shows that the Frontiers editors are really not on the side of science. And this is just a very brief quote from his announcement, that he was resigning. He says "Essentially, this puts large sections of science at risk. Clearly, every geocentrist, flat earther, anti-vaxxer, creationist, homeopath, astrologer, diviner, and any other unpersuadable can now feel encouraged to challenge scientific papers in a court."
And so I think this is the real danger, that it sets a precedent that emboldens people who reject science, that if they can't get satisfaction by challenging science in the scientific journals - which is the proper process - they'll just use the courts to shut down a field of science or a paper that they don't particularly like. And even there's an Australian climate scientist, Roger Jones, who's at the Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, he's also a coordinating author for the IPCC, and he's now reconsidering his decision to become an associate editor there at Frontiers. He says "I see this behaviour from Frontiers as counterproductive to science in general, and climate science in particular. If the statements made by editor-in-chief Henry Markram are representative of Frontiers at large, I can't see how it can be supported by the research community". And I think he speaks for a lot of people, when he says, you know, if a journal, a scientific journal is not prepared to defend academic freedom, well, it might as well close its doors. You are always going to have people who don't like what you say, but you have got to stand up for the truth and what's right and for scientific progress.