TUESDAY, Nov. 28, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- An independent committee has recommended that one of the world's leading scientific journals tighten its publishing guidelines a year after one of the biggest hoaxes in modern science appeared in the pages of the journal.
At the same time, the committee confirmed that the editors at Science had adequately followed publishing procedures that were in place when a group of South Korean scientists, led by Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk, submitted two papers detailing the creation of stem cell lines from cloned embryos. The supposed cloning feat has since been declared a fraud, and the two papers have been retracted.
"We found that the procedures and standards of Science are typical of those at top-tier scientific journals, and these were followed with exceptional care. Editors went out of their way to ensure that the work reported was correct, and this paper probably received as much editorial care and attention as any I'm aware of," John I. Brauman, committee member, chairman of the journal's senior editorial board and J.G. Jackson- C.J. Wood professor of chemistry at Stanford University, said at a Tuesday news conference.
But the standards which led to what Brauman called a "distressing experience" just weren't good enough, journal staff asserted.
"The environment has changed for science. The report warns that there are increased incentives for work that is misleading or distorted by self-interest," said Science Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy. "We'll be working these new procedures out and will be seeking commentary from the scientific community."
Kennedy's editorial response to the report will appear in the Dec. 1 issue of Science.
Back in 2004 and 2005, Hwang's work was hailed as a breakthrough until it was revealed to have been faked. On Jan. 12, 2006, Science took the highly unusual step of issuing an editorial retraction of both papers.
The committee's report made several recommendations, including:
It was not clear which recommendations would be adopted, or when. "We are still in the early stages of developing our response to this," Kennedy said.
Members of the committee also pointed out that no system to detect fraud can be foolproof.
"Reviewers are not policemen. If someone is deliberately trying to be misleading, it's going to be very hard to detect unless we go into the laboratory and try to reproduce experiments, and I don't think anybody is interested in doing that at the moment," Brauman said. "It's a matter of being protective rather than trying to reform the whole system."
"We're going to have to design a system that can be respected by the scientific community, does not provide an atmosphere of automatic mistrust and, nevertheless, enables us to evaluate papers, particularly papers that present substantial risk, in a more effective way, and that's going to take some work," Kennedy added.
More information
Visit Science to view the retraction.