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Progress in science
Progress in science depends on new techniques, new discoveries and new ideas, probably in that order (Sydney Brenner}.
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Wahlergebnis 2021: Ein Rückschlag für die wissenschaftliche Integrität
Die Dissertation von Giffey hat auf 76 von 205 Seiten Plagiate, was einem Anteil von 37 % aller Seiten entspricht. Laut Vroniplag haben 11 Seiten sogar 50 % – 75 % Plagiatstext und 1 Seite mehr als 75 % (nicht viel anders sieht es mit ihrer FH Masterarbeit aus, die allerdings nicht offiziell überprüft wird).
FAZ 10.6.2021
Am Donnerstag teilte der Präsident der FU, Günter Ziegler, Giffey nun mit, dass die am 30. Oktober 2019 erteilte Rüge zurückgenommen werde und dass sie ihre Promotionsurkunde innerhalb eines Monats nach Bestandskraft der Entziehung zurückzugeben habe. Der Giffey verliehene Doktorgrad sei „durch Täuschung über die Eigenständigkeit ihrer wissenschaftlichen Leistung erworben worden“, heißt es in dem Brief, der der F.A.Z. vorliegt.
Der Berliner SPD und vielen Wählern ist das allerdings völlig egal wie zuverlässig jemand arbeitet – sie wählten Franziska Giffey, die nun gute Chancen regierende Bürgermeisterin von Berlin zu werden.
SPIEGEL 27.9.2021
Die SPD hat die Abgeordnetenhauswahl in Berlin gewonnen, alle Stimmbezirke sind ausgezählt. Die Partei mit Spitzenkandidatin Franziska Giffey erreichte 21,4 Prozent und landete vor den Grünen, die auf 18,9 Prozent kamen.
Und leider wählte sie nun auch das Abgeordnetenhaus am historischen 21.12.21 mit 84 von 139 Abgeordnetenstimmen zur Regierenden Bürgermeisterin von Berlin.
Und das kommt dann dabei heraus
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Virus reactivation
A recent Nature study showed Ebola reactivation in a previously infected patient:
The 2021 lineage shows considerably lower divergence than would be expected during sustained human-to-human transmission, which suggests a persistent infection with reduced replication or a period of latency.
The most recent viral genome shared 10 substitutions that evolved during the previous epidemic making it unlikely that there was a new animal spillover event. I always wondered how second & third wave of COVID-19 started in Germany. Was it really a new spread or just a reactivation? A Frontiers review concluded from the existing literature that
our study, consisting more than a total of 113,715 patients, indicates that the RP-SARS-CoV-2 scenario occurs plausibly due to reactivation, reinfection, viral shedding, or testing errors.
So far, there are 240 documented COVID-19 cases of reinfection reported worldwide according to the reinfection tracker. In the case of Ebola there is a known viral persistence in semen while transmission through milk and cervicovaginal fluid is also possible (similar for COVID-19 although neuronal persistence seems to be more relevant). Maybe we need more immunological studies particular in long COVID if there is a continuous or intermittent antigenic stimulation due to persistence of an antigenic reservoir.
The fourth wave in Germany is caused by the delta variant, reactivation of alpha is certainly not a major factor. So we will only know in the next few years if reactivation is responsible for small regional outbreaks in unvaccinated communities.
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A comparison of image duplication software
A quick comparison without pretending any objectivity
| Open Source | Commercial / Restricted Access | Web | Upper Limit Images | Speed | Sensitivity | Specificity | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image Verification Assistant | N | N | Y | 1 | * | * | * | |
| Forensically | N | N | Y | 1 | *** | * | * | |
| FotoForensics | N | N | Y | 1 | ** | * | * | |
| Imagedup | N | N | Y | >500 | *** | * | * | proof of principle |
| ImageTwin | N | Y | Y | 10 | *** | ** | ** | |
| Lpixel | N | Y | Y | 50? | ? | ? | ? | |
| Proofig | N | Y | Y | 50? | * | */** | */** | |
| Droplets | Y | N | N | 1 | * | * | * | |
| ImageJ | Y | N | N | 1 | ? | ? | ? | |
| Sherloq | Y | N | N | 1 | NA | NA | NA | toolbox |
| figcheck | N | N | Y | 1 | ? | ? | ? | scam? |
| BioVoxxel | Y | N | N | 1 | ? | ? | ? | toolbox |
I believe that all services should be in the open domain while bulk or routine data processing could be a business model.
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When a scientific journal is modifying your images
The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI) published numerous images that have been heavily modified. For Pubpeer examples see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…
As I learned recently, this happened without the knowledge of the authors. As the duplications are always at the outer edges and originate from the same image, we assume that JACI publishing service inserted some cloned background” to insert”journal style” letter boxes.
Difficult to understand? Here is an example from the first reference.
JACI is known to ignore misconduct allegations while they are now slowly responding to post publication peer review.
…the duplications occurred when the publisher’s compositor vendor styled the figure panel label for print. The error did not impact the analysis, results, or conclusions of the article. The original figure appears below. The authors were not responsible for the error. Measures have been taken to prevent reoccurrence of this error for which the publisher accepts full responsibility and apologizes.
So photoshopping is no more allowed at the JACI office in Colorado– but who is accepting this “full responsibility”?
29 Aug 2021
@spy_sci pointed out this morning to a paper in “Cell Journal” with a similar phenomenon while also @Cheshire has found multiple times over the past year. @SmutClyde contributed another example from Bioscience Reports.
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Desinformation Experts
another interesting find about “Epistemic Trespassing” by N. Ballantine
Epistemic trespassers are thinkers who have competence or expertise to make good judgments in one field, but move to another field where they lack competence—and pass judgment nevertheless. … A few examples …Philosophers are especially wary of intruders on their turf. The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has written and lectured on religion. Experts in the philosophy of religion—atheists, agnostics, and theists alike—charge that Dawkins fails to engage with the genuine issues and sets up strawmen as his dialectical opponents. Dawkins appears to overstep his competence as a biologist.
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Pathologies in religion and science
excerpt from the Ratzinger and Habermas meeting 19. Januar 2004 (translated by Tham 2018, p5)
We have seen that there exist pathologies in religion that are extremely dangerous and that make it necessary to see the divine light of reasons as “controlling organ”. Religion must continually allow itself to be purified and structured by reason … There are also pathologies of reason, although mankind in general is not as conscious of this fact today. There is a hubris of reason that is no less dangerous. This why reason, too, must be warned to keep within its proper limits, and it must learn a willingness to listen to the great religious tradition of mankind.
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The value of a citation
https://www.jstor.org/stable/145797
Using data from three separate state university systems, we find that this variable is indeed positively and significantly related to a scholar’s pay, at least in the case of research-oriented higher education institutions. More specifically, we find that an increase in this variable is associated with a 2.8 to 8.9% boost in the salaries of college and university faculty.
1 highly cited paper equals $13,500 in the US which is a large increase from 1986.
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Formal peer review may come to an end
I was reading my umpteenth news story about Covid-19 science, a story about the latest research into how to make indoor spaces safe from infection, about whether cleaning surfaces or changing the air was more important. And it was bothering me. Not because it was dull (which, of course, it was: there are precious few ways to make air filtration and air pumps edge-of-the-seat stuff). But because of the way it treated the science.
You see, much of the research it reported was in the form of pre-prints, papers shared by researchers on the internet before they are submitted to a scientific journal. And every mention of one of these pre-prints was immediately followed by the disclaimer that it had not yet been peer reviewed. As though to convey to the reader that the research therein, the research plastered all over the story, was somehow of less worth, less value, less meaning than the research in a published paper, a paper that had passed peer review.
I expect the business of scientific publishers is slowly coming to an end. Maybe others also?
The solution to scientific publishing might be going back to writing books instead of papers. Can’t decide if I’m joking. There’re too many papers published, books will be of higher quality (take time & effort). Urgent results could be pre-printed & discussed in conferences.
— Oded Rechavi (@OdedRechavi) October 31, 2021
We will need of course peer evaluation but maybe not in the sense that scientific publication is being suppressed by peer review of some elite journals. Some arXiv type PDF deposit plus some elife/twitter/pubpeer score would be fully sufficient. For me and maybe also for many other people in the field.
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Platon. Politikos. Pro Panmixie. Contra Crispr Cas.
GAST: Die Sittsamen und Bescheidenen suchen wiederum ihre Gemütsart, heiraten soviel es sich tun lässt, nur von solchen, und geben auch ihre Töchter wiederum nur an solche zu Frauen. Ebenso macht es auch das tapfere Geschlecht, und geht seiner Natur nach, während beide hiervon ganz das Gegenteil tun sollten.
DER JÜNGERE SOKRATES: Wie und weshalb?
GAST: Weil die Tapferkeit, wenn sie viele Geschlechter hindurch, ohne sich mit der besonnenen Natur vermischt zu haben, wieder erzeugt wird, anfänglich zwar sich durch Kräftigkeit hervortut, am Ende aber ganz in Tollheiten ausschlägt.
DER JÜNGERE SOKRATES: Wahrscheinlich.
GAST: Und wiederum die schamhafte Seele, wenn sie sich, unvermischt mit tapferem Wagemut, viele Geschlechter hindurch fortpflanzt, muss träger werden als recht ist, und damit verkümmert endigen.
DER JÜNGERE SOKRATES: Auch das wird sich wahrscheinlich so ereignen.
GAST: Diese Bande nun, sagte ich, wären gar nicht schwer zu knüpfen, wenn nur über das Schöne und Gute beide dieselben Vorstellungen hätten. Denn dies ist die Aufgabe jener königlichen Zusammenwebung, dass sie niemals die besonnene und die tapfere Gemütsart sich voneinander trennen lasse..
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COVID19 Testzentren oder reicht ein COVID19 Selbsttest?
Bei einer Radtour von München nach Berlin Ende Juni 2021 habe ich wegen einschlägiger Vorschriften für Hotels und Campingplätze fast täglich ein neues Testzentrum gesucht.
Bei den insgesamt 7 Schnelltests gab es dabei in jedem Bundesland andere Regelungen – einmal durfte ein Test nur 24h alt sein, dann wieder 72h oder es gab wie in Berlin überhaupt keine Testpflicht.
An einer Rezeption bekam ich selbst das Testkit in die Hand. Einmal sollte ich nur an dem Stäbchen lutschen, zweimal wurde nur die vordere Nasenhöhle abgestrichen, zweimal die Tonsillen; einmal war es nur eine kurze Schleimhautberührung, einmal wurde mir fast ein Loch in die Rachen hinterwand gebohrt.
Das Argument für die deutschen Testzentren war (trotz der bald erkannten Betrugsanfälligkeit), daß man Tests sonst nicht hätte flächendeckend ausrollen können.
Ich glaube allerdings dass das nicht so ganz stimmt. Schnelltests sind alle mit Barcode versehen, damit eindeutig registrier- und zuordenbar. So funktioniert jedenfalls die Tiroler Methode, bei der auf einer Webseite selbst durchgeführte Tests mit ID eingetragen und damit entwertet werden.
Vorteile dieser Methode: genauso viel oder so wenig vertrauenswürdig wie die Testzentren, leicht überprüfbar ob die Nummer wirklich entwertet wurde, zentral auswertbare Tests und – siehe oben – technisch auch nicht schlechter als die Testzentrum, jedenfalls bei immenser Kosteneinsparung. Dazu kommt die Zeitersparniss, besseren Datenschutz sowie keine zusätzliche Infektionsgefahr im Testzentrum.
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Scientific PDFs
I found only one relevant blog post about PDFs produced by scientific publishers.
Although PDFs are the main formal output nowadays (no more “papers”) there is basically no standardization which meta data should be included in scientifc PDFs. It’s largely due to the software in the production office what’s in the PDF document — a largely underused resource.
This is at least my experience when working on an image duplication pipeline in scientific papers. But test it yourself ….
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Ethik gegen UEFA 0:10
SZ Email Newsletter heute morgen
Lancet letzte Woche “Mass infection is not an option”
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Scientific discipline controversies
Are there any? Sure, a recent Twitter thread asked for it
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