Because Abi asked me to, I’m going to discuss the fascinating case of the Hellinga retractions. Since this is another case where there is a lot to talk about, I’m going to take it in two parts. In the first part, working from the Chemical & Engineering News article by Celia Henry Arnaud (May 5, 2008) [1], I’ll focus on the common scientific activity of trying to build on a piece of published work. What happens when the real results seem not to fit with the published results? What should happen?
In part 2, drawing from the Nature news feature by Erika Check Hayden (May 15, 2008) [2], I’ll consider this case in the context of scientific collaborations — both within research groups and between research groups. In light of the differentials in experience and power (especially between graduate students and principal investigators), who is making the crucial scientific decisions, and on the basis of what information?
But let’s start with the papers [3,4] that came out of the research group of Homme W. Hellinga, professor of biochemistry at Duke University.