Retraction data are still useless – almost

Retractions of scholarly articles are a rare event, affecting only about 0.02-0.04% of articles in total (but yearly rates are going up dramatically). This means that data about retractions are not even close to being representative of the scholarly literature at large. In particular, when the non-retracted literature contains anything from 40% to over 80% of unreliable work, even today's retraction rates of around 0.2% or so seem totally negligible, in the grand scheme of things. After all, […]

https://bjoern.brembs.net/2026/01/retraction-data-are-still-useless-almost/

@brembs

I got past the throat-clearing paragraph posted and I see the acknowledgement that case studies are valuable and that one does have some interesting data. Roughly the opposite of the opening tone, I'm happy to see.

Returning to the broader picture, commercial academic publishing is good candidate for a burn-it-all-down (but don't salt the earth) level reform.

Meanwhile one documents the atrocities.

https://retractionwatch.com

Retraction Watch

Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process

Retraction Watch