Women as participants in research trials continues to be a hot topic. In one previous post, I presented data showing that, even though we often hear claims that women are underrepresented as research participants, data from the Office on Research on Women’s Health
Dear J Nuzzo — I thoroughly enjoyed your essay and method of testing the verity and scholarship of the authors described therein. In another life, I studied the area of evidential malpractice and citation abuse in biomedicine. Your contextualization of the errors and malpracticing scholars was excellent because these kinds of “errors” have a way of ballooning across compounding citations and are abetted by multiple cognitive biases (confirmation, representative, availability, etc). These errors slip in because sloppy editors allow assertions of fact matters without requiring appropriate warrants and justifications for claims. Making a broad statement that characterizes the scientific publication in a field requires a systematic review or at least a well defined methodologically grounded review with appropriate limitations articulated. And, editors really should look at the chains of citations (X citing Y citing Z ) until they find an original methodologically sound study that supports a claim. Big money, national research agendas, careers, public health and policy all depend on the virtuous practice of science and social science, including primary researchers and their journal editors and ALSO the secondary literature communities (I.e., reviewers). We have just been subject to the deadliest human experiment in history, which proceeded with help from the pervasive corruption of science and scholarship developing for years. So, good on you and thank you for naming names. I hope you sent a letter to the editors.
I published my critique and results in a journal called Quest. The error I corrected was published in a journal called Research Quarterly for Sport and Exercise (RQES; also previously known as Research Quarterly). I originally submitted my critique and results to RQES thinking they might be interested to correct the error they published in their journal, and the error was about the history their journal. However, RQES elected not to review my paper. After that, I submitted the paper to Quest.
Dec 1, 2023·edited Dec 1, 2023Liked by James L. Nuzzo
You certainly did your best to clean up Dodge and in a vital area where the error is impactful. Of course, impact factors for journals are built on citations of published papers and so are measures of individual scholarly impact (E.g. H-index). And the kind of broad claim that you went after so adroitly, is exactly the kind of sweeping generalization that people love to frame an alleged problem to sponsors of research— so the likelihood of citing this bum article we might hypothesize as high because there is no actual evidence available and it’s a prestigious journal issue. So it’s the gift that keeps on giving for the bad actors… impact, impact, impact. I salute your courage and dedication to have taken this on. Your publication will follow the bad actors in the chain of citations and let’s hope someone else in the field (or you again) picks up the re-citing of the original and your critique.
An Office of Women's Health was created 30 years ago by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1991 during another pandemic, HIV. At the time the Office of Women's Health was created, HIV infection became the number one cause of death among men aged 25-44 years-of-age. From 1982 to 1992, the death rate increased from 0.6 per 100,000 to 52.8 per 100,000 for men 25-44 years-of-age and from 0.1 per 100,000 to 7.8 per 100,000 for women 25-44 years-of-age. The male to female HIV death ratio, for those 25-44, was 7:1 respectively. In 2021, the Biden administration established the White House Gender Policy council, a gender policy council that specifically excludes boys and men. It did so during a COVID pandemic, opioid epidemic, and a surging homicide rate; all of which disproportionately impacts boys and men. Men's health has been ignored for decades. https://www.gibm.us/news/america-embraced-wonder-woman-and-forget-about-g-i-joe
Thanks Jim Nuzzo for exposing the narrative building lies that are so often found in feminist writings. This one is a doozy! Have you ever written to Ainsworth to alert her directly about this error?
Dear J Nuzzo — I thoroughly enjoyed your essay and method of testing the verity and scholarship of the authors described therein. In another life, I studied the area of evidential malpractice and citation abuse in biomedicine. Your contextualization of the errors and malpracticing scholars was excellent because these kinds of “errors” have a way of ballooning across compounding citations and are abetted by multiple cognitive biases (confirmation, representative, availability, etc). These errors slip in because sloppy editors allow assertions of fact matters without requiring appropriate warrants and justifications for claims. Making a broad statement that characterizes the scientific publication in a field requires a systematic review or at least a well defined methodologically grounded review with appropriate limitations articulated. And, editors really should look at the chains of citations (X citing Y citing Z ) until they find an original methodologically sound study that supports a claim. Big money, national research agendas, careers, public health and policy all depend on the virtuous practice of science and social science, including primary researchers and their journal editors and ALSO the secondary literature communities (I.e., reviewers). We have just been subject to the deadliest human experiment in history, which proceeded with help from the pervasive corruption of science and scholarship developing for years. So, good on you and thank you for naming names. I hope you sent a letter to the editors.
I published my critique and results in a journal called Quest. The error I corrected was published in a journal called Research Quarterly for Sport and Exercise (RQES; also previously known as Research Quarterly). I originally submitted my critique and results to RQES thinking they might be interested to correct the error they published in their journal, and the error was about the history their journal. However, RQES elected not to review my paper. After that, I submitted the paper to Quest.
You certainly did your best to clean up Dodge and in a vital area where the error is impactful. Of course, impact factors for journals are built on citations of published papers and so are measures of individual scholarly impact (E.g. H-index). And the kind of broad claim that you went after so adroitly, is exactly the kind of sweeping generalization that people love to frame an alleged problem to sponsors of research— so the likelihood of citing this bum article we might hypothesize as high because there is no actual evidence available and it’s a prestigious journal issue. So it’s the gift that keeps on giving for the bad actors… impact, impact, impact. I salute your courage and dedication to have taken this on. Your publication will follow the bad actors in the chain of citations and let’s hope someone else in the field (or you again) picks up the re-citing of the original and your critique.
An Office of Women's Health was created 30 years ago by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1991 during another pandemic, HIV. At the time the Office of Women's Health was created, HIV infection became the number one cause of death among men aged 25-44 years-of-age. From 1982 to 1992, the death rate increased from 0.6 per 100,000 to 52.8 per 100,000 for men 25-44 years-of-age and from 0.1 per 100,000 to 7.8 per 100,000 for women 25-44 years-of-age. The male to female HIV death ratio, for those 25-44, was 7:1 respectively. In 2021, the Biden administration established the White House Gender Policy council, a gender policy council that specifically excludes boys and men. It did so during a COVID pandemic, opioid epidemic, and a surging homicide rate; all of which disproportionately impacts boys and men. Men's health has been ignored for decades. https://www.gibm.us/news/america-embraced-wonder-woman-and-forget-about-g-i-joe
Thanks Jim Nuzzo for exposing the narrative building lies that are so often found in feminist writings. This one is a doozy! Have you ever written to Ainsworth to alert her directly about this error?
Thanks, Tom.
No, I haven't written Ainsworth about the error.