Also this week: against Mother Trees, for magic money trees, working class academics, peer review vs. scientific misconduct (but not in the way you’re thinking), it’s the end of the internet as we know it (again), and more.
From Jeremy:
Jim Simons has passed away. Readers of this blog are most likely to know of him through his foundation, which supports basic scientific research in many fields, including some subfields of ecology. But to others, he was best known as one of most successful investors in history, a living counterexample to (the strongest versions of) the efficient markets hypothesis. Here is a NYTimes obituary, and here’s a personal remembrance from neuroscientist Erik Hoel. Hoel uses Simons’ life and career as a jumping-off point to talk about (purported) impossibilities in science.
News article in Nature on how scientists can collect royalties for their publications, via the “magic money tree” of collection societies. I had no idea this was a thing!
I’m a bit late to this, but it’s important. Here’s Karst et al. 2023 Nat Ecol Evol, and a Nature news article from earlier this spring, on how the notion of “Mother Trees” sharing resources through mycorrhizal networks has been oversold–not just in the popular press, but in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Here’s what goes into making a short film (as opposed to just a single shot) using OpenAI’s Sora.
Philosopher Helen De Cruz reflects on being an academic philosopher from a working class background. Very nice piece.
Morgan Ernest is liveblogging a (possible) impending regime shift in a desert rodent assemblage. Now I’m going to be really bummed if no regime shift manifests. It’s going to be like a disappointing tv series finale. 🙂
Nielsen et al. suspected someone of serial scientific misconduct. So they systematically checked all of that person’s papers for evidence of misconduct, and then…[wait for it]…published a peer-reviewed paper about their findings. To which: just no. Completely independent of the merits of their case for misconduct (which I haven’t looked into), I don’t think that’s what the peer review system is for. Now I’m wondering what would’ve happened if the people investigating #pruittdata (including me!) had tried to get an Am Nat paper out of it. (I’m kidding, no one involved ever considered trying to get a paper out of our investigations!)
The bestselling British novels of the 19th century. And part 2 if you prefer to define “bestseller” as “most sales within the first few years after publication” rather than “most sales within the first month after publication.” Includes interesting historical discussion of 19th century publishing industry practices. I’m not sure how surprised I am to learn that a Dickens novel is not #1, and that the bestselling Dickens novel is forgotten today. As an aside: can you name Charles Darwin’s bestselling book in his lifetime? No, not the Origin (though it did sell well).
It’s the end of the world internet as we know it. Again. And the author feels fine.
Dynamic Ecology 
I haven’t read the paper on the systemic research fraud, but I’m not sure I fully agree with you that publishing a paper based on the investigation is not the right approach.
If a scientists finds a problem in a single paper, they can submit a comment to the journal (which has to be peer-reviewed before being published). So, what else should a scientist do if they find multiple issues across many papers and journals? It would be unreasonable to write individual comments to all the different journals. Even posting their concerns on PubPeer would have to be on a paper-by-paper basis.
My main issue is that a error in any one paper can be due to a simple accident, like mistakenly copying a formula in a spreadsheet. But when the same mistake happens again and again, it is a sign of (at best) incompetence or (at worst) misconduct. So, what formal options do researchers have to record, validate, and communicate evidence of systemic errors besides compiling them in a manuscript? Personally, I think writing a paper is more circumspect than posting the evidence on a blog or on social media precisely because it is peer-reviewed…
Lastly, I suspect a fundamental difference with your experience on #pruitdata is that your investigation was initiated (or at least supported and encouraged) by the journal editors themselves. Unfortunately, in too many other cases editors expect water-tight and independently validated evidence before even considering internal investigations.
Hi Jeremy; Darwin wrote > 20 books, including 2 on barnacles that are rarely reprinted. I think there were 5 editions of the ORIGIN, which I count as one book. I decided to not look up your question, but to make a guess. I used the criteria of the broadest audience topic……and the winner is ‘THE FORMATION OF VEGETABLE MOULD through the action of worms’.
Correct?
Yes, that’s correct! British readers found the subject charming.
Trivial correction: the Origin went through 6 editions in Darwin’s lifetime.
My second guess would be THE POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS, for its novelty of subject.