Text: Meng Lingxiao, reporter of China Science Daily
"It is unreasonable to retract our paper, this research will protect millions of lives!"
After suffering three retractions in a row, Sanal Kumar, a professor at Amity University in India, "broke the defense". In his nearly 20-year academic career, he proposed an entirely new theory that bears his name, but the theory was strongly criticized by his peers and accused of "absolute nonsense".
Kumar is now preparing to sue the editors and publishers of the retracted paper, namely Springer Nature Group and Wiley Publishing, because "their retracted articles are essential to protect countless lives".
Xu Shaoxiong, a postdoctoral fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University who is engaged in retraction research, told China Science Daily that suing academic journals and publishers after retraction is like "two couples breaking up". This phenomenon shows that scientific dishonesty is an increasingly common problem, and its complexity and indulgerence are increasing day by day, so it is necessary to advocate for open science, post-publication peer review, and picketing within the academic community represented by PubPeer and Retraction Watch, and even social scrutiny.
As of press time, the author of the retraction has not replied to the reporter's email.
Sanal Kumar, a professor at Amity University, is pictured on the university's official website
"Rocket scientist", cross-border life sciences
There are two major doubts behind these three retractions, one is the innovation theory, and the other is the affiliation.
The search found that three papers of which Sanal Kumar was the corresponding author were published in Nature Science Reports and Global Challenges, with the first paper retracted in June 2023 and the other two in March this year.
At the heart of the series is a new cross-disciplinary theory named after Sanal. Even a layman, when looking at the brain, heart, and vascular illustrations of 3 papers, is enough to see that this is a cutting-edge study in the field of life sciences.
According to Kumar and his collaborators, this theory "has led to scientific breakthroughs and paradigm shifts in research that have helped solve many unanswered scientific questions in the physical, chemical and biological sciences for centuries, with many applications, including the treatment of cardiovascular and neurological diseases."
Manuscripts and illustrations are withdrawn
But this theory seems to be unreliable in the eyes of peers.
"The mistakes are so obvious that you only need to read their paper for 10 to 15 minutes and you can see that it's all nonsense." Ganesh Natarajan, associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, commented.
What is even more paradoxical is that when he published three life science-related papers, Kumar was not affiliated with universities and medical institutions, but with the Indian Space Research Organization. In other words, these studies are cross-border innovations of "rocket scientists".
Natarajan had expressed to Willy in May 2022 his concern about the papers: the gas flow theory of rocket engines simply did not apply to the rules governing the flow of blood through human arteries – a point that Sanal and his collaborators had completely ignored to draw unfounded conclusions.
In May last year, the "rocket scientist" made headlines in India because of his affiliation. The country's Supreme Court upheld his dismissal from the Indian Space Research Organization. The court said Kumar's former employer "had reason to doubt his honesty and integrity because he had made unauthorized contact with a South Korean agency involved in rocket research."
As for today's retraction, Kumar remains convinced that it is an "international conspiracy to discredit research." His attorneys are preparing to sue the editor and publisher of the retracted paper.
There was a scholar who "touched" the natural group and claimed $50 billion
Coincidentally, there is a precedent for suing publishers for retractions, but the plaintiffs have not won.
In June 2020, Rhawn Joseph, an American "astronomer", took the publisher Springer Nature Group to court and claimed $50 billion for a retraction.
Previously, a paper in which he was the first author was retracted by the journal Astrophysics and Space Science, a journal owned by Nature Group. The editors and publishers of the journal argued that the paper did not provide sufficient critical evidence for the material provided and the literature cited, and failed to provide solid support for the speculative statements in the article.
Rhawn Joseph个人主页
Subsequently, Joseph took Springer Nature to court and claimed $50 billion. The money, he explained, would be used to "fund and assemble a team of thousands of scientists who could make the greatest discoveries in science in the future."
It is worth mentioning that the protagonist of this case, Rhawn Joseph, claims to be "one of the leading figures in the search for extraterrestrial life". According to his personal homepage, he has written works such as "Consciousness in the Universe" and "Quantum Reality and the Mind", and his current research field is evidence of life on Mars. As can be seen from his previous publications, Joseph is affiliated with the Northern California Astrobiological Association and the "Cosmology Network".
In the case, Joseph said that major scientific discoveries must go through three stages: ridicule, fierce opposition, and unspoken acceptance, and that his theory is in the second stage. He claims that his work is widely read by the scientific community and has attracted the attention of the Nobel Prize Committee.
However, the outcome of the trial did not turn out as Joseph had hoped. After losing the case, the presiding judge ruled that the publisher was not required to pay the $50 billion claim, while Joseph argued that the presiding judge had covered up the truth and was a "bribe-taking liar." From this point of view, the "greatest discovery in the field of science" will have to be put on hold.
Until February of this year, Joseph was still active in "academia", and his latest published paper is titled "Extraterrestrial Life in the Thermosphere".
Suing a publisher is like "two couples break up"
Looking at the cases of retraction lawsuits in recent years, readers may have two questions:
First, how can these "unreliable" manuscripts pass peer review and be published in journals under well-known publishing houses? Second, why does it take a considerable amount of time for such manuscripts to be retracted?
In this regard, Xu Shaoxiong, a postdoctoral fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University who is engaged in retraction research, told China Science Daily that the validity of the peer review mechanism is premised on the assumption that all researchers who submit papers follow the principle of scientific integrity 100%. If researchers deliberately violate the rules and falsify, it is difficult for reviewers and editors to identify them in a short period of time in many cases.
At present, with the advancement of text plagiarism checking, image recognition technology, ORCID application and other technical means, academic journals can screen some scientific research dishonesty before the manuscript is submitted for review, but it is common for fish to slip through the net, and usually the number of reviewers is only two or three, and the experience is limited.
As for the time lag of retraction, that is, the time lag between the publication of an article and the retraction, Xu Shaoxiong said that the speed of retraction is related to many factors, such as the influence of the article in question, the degree of attention it receives, the attitude of the authors involved, the attitude, resources and capabilities of the journals and publishers involved, and the attitudes and actions of the research institutions of the authors involved.
"Dishonesty in research is an increasingly common problem, and its complexity and thorniness are increasing by the day." Xu Shaoxiong suggested that it is necessary to advocate open science, post-publication peer review, as well as picketing within the academic community represented by PubPeer and Retraction Watch, and even social supervision.
As for taking the editor and publisher to court after the retraction, Xu Shaoxiong believes that this behavior is similar to "two couples breaking up": if the retraction insists that the quality of the paper is guaranteed, it can go through the judicial process, but the judicial decision must have an academic basis, and the basis can only come from academic experts; At the same time, the judicial process is costly and will cost journals and publishers a lot of time and resources.
He said that in this case, it is time to pay tribute to academic journals and publishers who have resisted the pressure and insisted on retracting their manuscripts.
Resources:
https://retractionwatch.com/2024/04/24/controversial-rocket-scientist-in-india-threatens-legal-action-after-journals-pull-papers/#more-129140
https://retractionwatch.com/2021/12/21/court-tosses-50-billion-suit-by-prince-of-panspermia-against-springer-nature/
https://retractionwatch.com/2020/10/06/prince-of-panspermia-has-a-paper-retracted-and-sues-springer-nature/
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5643-7223