Improbable Research

The Retraction Watch blog reports a rare case:

Double negatives: Four years later, a journal restores retracted headache paper

It might not be a first – although we can’t find another example — but a mental health journal has reinstated an article it retracted four years ago.

The retracted retraction notice appears in the August issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, a BMJ title, and refers to a 2005 article describing an alarming case of treatment-related emotional problems in a patient with cluster headaches.

This month’s Dr. Suckfüll of the Month is Prof. Dr. med. Markus Suckfüll.

He is Chefarzt der Klinik at Krankenhaus Martha-Maria in München, Germany, and author of the popular “Emergencies in general practice, 4. Sudden deafness: follow the guidelines,” [M. Suckfüll, MMW Fortschr Med. 2001 Mar 1;143(9):37-9] and numerous other studies.

(Thanks to investigator Rose Fox for bringing this to our attention.)

Professor Marc Hauser of Harvard University, author of a range of articles, is now accused of research misconduct. Among his publications (these specific articles are not being criticized, that we know of):

“Is Morality Natural?“, Newsweek, September 22, 2008.

“Psychopaths know right from wrong but don’t care,” Social Cognitive and Affected Neuroscience, published online: January 6, 2010.

The Boston Globe reported yesterday that:

Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser — a well-known scientist and author of the book “Moral Minds’’ — is taking a year-long leave after a lengthy internal investigation found evidence of scientific misconduct in his laboratory…. He is writing a book titled “Evilicious: Explaining Our Evolved Taste for Being Bad.’’

Over the next few days we’ll look at highlights from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor Gregory D. Webster‘s study:

“Playboy playmates, the Dow Jones, consumer sentiment, and the Doomsday Clock: A critical examination of the Environmental Security Hypothesis,” Journal of Social, Evolutionary & Cultural Psychology, vol. 2, no. 2, 2008, pp. 23-41.

Today: Playboy Playmate of the Year age versus minutes remaining on The Doomsday Clock:

Is ‘a pair’ big enough to be called ‘a group’? The tricky subject of dyads has recently been causing considerable professorial debate in the journal ‘Small Group Research’. (Note: the word ‘dyad ‘ is derived from the Greek ‘dýo’, meaning ‘two’.)
It began back in April 2010, when Richard Lee Moreland, Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Pittsburgh, posed the question – ‘Are Dyads Really Groups? Maybe not, explains the professor -

“I argue that dyads are not really groups because (a) dyads are more ephemeral than groups, forming and dissolving more quickly; (b) people feel stronger (and often different) emotions in dyads than in groups; (c) dyads are simpler than groups—some group phenomena cannot occur in dyads, and those that do may operate differently there; and (d) research on dyads is carried out almost independently (by different people, applying different theories and methods, and publishing their work in different outlets) from research on groups.”

But Kipling D. Williams, Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University also published his paper ‘Dyads Can Be Groups (and Often Are)’ in the very same journal.

For these several days we are looking at highlights from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor Gregory D. Webster‘s study:

“Playboy playmates, the Dow Jones, consumer sentiment, and the Doomsday Clock: A critical examination of the Environmental Security Hypothesis,” Journal of Social, Evolutionary & Cultural Psychology, vol. 2, no. 2, 2008, pp. 23-41.

Today: Playboy Playmate of the Year bust sizes versus changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average: