‘Grimpact’: psychological researchers should do more to prevent widespread harm

Researchers carefully evaluate ethics for study participants, but Alon Zivony argues we need to consider wider guidelines for socially responsible science.

May 17, 2024

The British Psychological Society (the psychologist)

Dr. Alon Zivony

"In a recent study, US researchers claimed to have found that Black and Hispanic Americans are not more likely to be fatally shot by police officers than White Americans. Unsurprisingly, this study got a lot of attention with over 100 news outlets covering it and millions of people discussing it on social media. Meanwhile, scientists criticised the study for its analyses, claiming they were so flawed that they invalidated the conclusions entirely. At first, the authors rejected the criticisms.

But then, something almost unprecedented happened: in response to the public debate, the authors decided to retract their paper due to 'the continued use' of the work to 'support for the idea that there are no racial biases in fatal shootings, or policing in general'. In other words, this highly visible paper was retracted, not because of flaws in the methodology, but because of ethical concerns about its adverse impacts on society.



Science stands on shaky shoulders with research misconduct

Research misconduct poisons the well of scientific literature, but finding systemic ways to change the current “publish or perish” culture will help.

July 4, 2024

Drug Discovery News (DDN)

Stephanie DeMarco, PhD

"I distinctly remember the day I saw a western blot band stretched, rotated, and pasted into another panel. Zoomed out, it looked like a perfectly normal blot; the imposter band sat amongst the others like it had always been there.

Sitting at a long table with the other graduate students on my training grant, I watched as our professor showed us example after example of images from published scientific papers that had been manipulated to embellish the data. I really appreciate that course and the other research integrity courses I took during my research training for teaching me and my peers how to spot bad science and what to do when we encounter it. It made me a better scientist when I was in the lab, and now, it makes me a better journalist.

When bad science infiltrates the publication record, researchers unwittingly build their own research programs around shaky science. Not only does this waste researchers’ time and money, but it affects real people’s lives."



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