Rebecca Sear: Four years ago, Psychological Science published a paper which used a ludicrously poor quality dataset. That paper was retracted, partly in order to avoid “prolonging the use” of the data but the dataset still thrives in the academic literature. Read our article & 🧵 for examples

Four years ago, Psychological Science published a paper which used a ludicrously poor quality dataset. That paper was retracted, partly in order to avoid “prolonging the use” of the data but the dataset still thrives in the academic literature. Read our article & 🧵 for examples

Journals that published Richard Lynn's racist 'research' articles should retract themwww.statnews.com Richard Lynn's work has been repeatedly condemned for using flawed methodology and deceptively collated data to support racism. It's past time to retract the studies.

Before getting to the examples, here's more detail on just how bad the dataset is. It is truly astonishing that this dataset was ever taken seriously osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSFosf.io

First, some hopeful news; one journal did have an exemplary process for investigating concerns. Proc Roy Soc B's process was swift, transparent & rigorous; and a paper which used the dataset was retracted on grounds of the "manifest problems in the data"

Journals | Royal Societyrsj.scienceconnect.io Our international, peer reviewed journals publish high quality science and provide an excellent service to our authors and readers.

In contrast, no investigation was initiated when I raised a concern about a paper in Springer's Evolutionary Psychological Science which used NIQ data 👇 The editor only suggested I write a commentary & then stopped responding to my emails when I declined t.co/mbZhc5XL3C

The Biogeography of Human Diversity in Cognitive Ability - Evolutionary Psychological Sciencet.co After many waves of out-migration from Africa, different human populations evolved within a great diversity of physical and community ecologies. These ambient ecologies should have at least partially ...

(And just take a look at the image which is highlighted when the paper is tweeted👆 the image is of "average IQs" in different "zoogeographical regions", highlighting the absurdly low IQ of the "Afro-Tropical" region. Which, incidentally, is so low because Lynn fudged the data)

Springer then declined to conduct an investigation into the paper, saying decisions were left in the hands of editors. An expression of concern was added to the paper, but many months later and only AFTER Springer were told STAT was publishing a piece on NIQ which mentioned them

The expression of concern also appears to defend the paper by pointing readers to another article published in the journal. This purports to be a defence of NIQ data but in fact strengthens the case that the dataset is scientifically worthless, by acknowledging methods were not adequately described

National Mean IQ Estimates: Validity, Data Quality, and Recommendations - Evolutionary Psychological Sciencelink.springer.com Estimates of mean IQ scores for different nations have engendered controversy since their first publication in 2002. While some researchers have used these mean scores to identify relationships betwee...

Here’s the correct link royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Retraction: ‘Parasite prevalence and the worldwide distribution of cognitive ability’ (2010), by Eppig, Fincher and Thornhill | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciencesroyalsocietypublishing.org

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